ANALYSIS  AND  MEASUREMENT 


OF 

SPELLERS 


BY 

ARLIE  GLENDi  CAPPS 

B.  S.  University  of  Missouri,  1916 
A.  M.  University  of  Missouri,  1917 


THESIS 

Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requirements  for  the 

Degree  of 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


IN  EDUCATION 


IN 

THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL 
OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


1921 


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TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.  Introduction 

Statement  of  Project  1 

Need  for  the  Project  3 

Limitations  of  Project  6 

Earlier  Investigations  7 

Score  Cards  10 

Bases  of  the  Project  13 

II.  Procedure  in  Analyzing  the  Spellers 

Spellers  Analyzed  19 

Procedure  in  Analyzing  the  Spellers  19 

III.  Extent  of  Vocabulary 

Extent  of  Vocabulary  in  Each  Book  26 

Extent  of  the  Vocabulary  in  Each  Grade  31 

IV.  Selection  of  Vocabulary 

Selection  of  Vocabulary  by  Books  37 

Selection  of  Vocabulary  by  Grades  44 

V.  Gradation  of  Vocabulary  56 

Median  Difficulty  of  Each  Grade  in  Each  Speller  60 

Difficulty  by  Grades  72 

Median  Difficulty  of  Each  Speller  8o 

Comparison  of  the  Books  on  the  Basis  of  Difficulty  84 

VI.  Repetition  of  Words  91 

Average  Number  of  Repetitions  of  All  Words  by  Grades  94 

Average  Repetitions  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  Words  99 

Repetition  of  Words  from  Grade  to  Grade  100 


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Chapter  Page 

Repetition  of  a Selected  List  of  Words  103 

Correlation  Between  Repetition  and  Difficulty  of  Words  106 

Correlation  Between  Repetition  and  Difficulty  by  Grades 

in  Each  Book  110 

Correlation  Between  Repetition  in  Spellers  and  in  Adult  Use  113 

VII.  Forms  of  Presentation  of  Words 

Percent  of  Spellers  Consisting  of  Dictation  Material  120 

Percent  of  All  Material  in  Each  Grade  Consisting  of 

Dictation  Material  121 

Grade  Norms  for  Certain  Forms  of  Presentation  Based 

on  Present  Practice  124 

Collation  of  All  Forms  of  Presentation  Examined  126 

VIII.  Two  Dimensional  Check  Lists  132 

Check  Lists  142 

IX.  Summary  and  Suggestions 

Summary  1 49 

Suggestions  154 

Selected  Bibliography 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/analysismeasuremOOcarp 


iii 


LIST  OF  TABLES 


Table  Page 

I.  Spelling  textbooks  studied  20 

II.  Number  of  different  words  in  each  book  27 

III.  Number  of  different  words  in  each  book  (Woody)  30 

IV.  Number  of  different  words  in  each  grade  32 

V.  Extent  to  which  the  words  of  the  Ayres-Teachere 

College  list  are  found  in  the  textbooks  39 

VI.  Rank  of  spellers  on  percent  of  Ayres-Teachers  College 

words  contained  in  their  vocabularies  43 

VII.  Number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  per  grade  46 

VIII.  Average  and  hypothetical  number  of  Ayres-Teachers 

College  words  per  grade  4 7 

IX.  Percent  of  words  in  each  grade  that  are  Ayres- 

Teachers  College  words  51 

X.  Percent  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  in  each  grade  53 

XI.  Median  percent  of  each  of  the  components  of  the 

Ayres-Teachers  College  list  in  each  grade  55 

XII.  Median  difficulty  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College 

words  as  found  in  each  grade  and  book  61 

XIII.  Median  difficulty  of  the  Ayres  words  as  found 

in  each  grade  and  book  65 

XIV.  Median  difficulty  of  the  Teachers  College  words 

as  found  in  each  grade  and  book  68 

XIV-A.  The  median  difficulty  of  the  Teachers  College  words 


as  found  in  each  grade  and  speller  expressed  in  terms 

of  columns  and  words  on  the  Ayres  Scale  71 


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Table  Page 

XV.  Index  numbers  by  grades, Ayres-Teachers  College  words  73 

XVI.  Index  numbers  by  grades, Teachers  College  words  75 

XVII.  Grade  intervals  after  Buckingham  77 

XVIII.  Median  difficulty  of  each  book.  First  method  8l 

XIX.  Median  difficulty  of  each  book.  Second  method  82 

XX.  Median  difficulty  of  each  book.  Third  method  83 

XX-A.  Comparison  of  median  difficulty  with  median 

pupil  ability  by  grades  87 

XXI.  Rank  of  spellers  based  on  adjustment  to  the 

ability  of  pupils  90 

XXII.  Number  of  words,  number  of  occurrences,  and 

average  occurrences  per  word  93 

XXIII.  Average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  95 

XXIII-A.  Range  in  average  repetitions  per  word  for  all  words  96 

XXIV.  Average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  for  the 

Ayres-Teachers  College  words  in  each  grade  98 

XXV.  Repetition  of  words  from  grade  to  grade  101 

XXVI.  Average  number  of  occurrences  per  word  for 

selected  list  of  100  104 

XXVII.  Behavior  of  the  easy  word  "some"  104a 

XXVIII.  Behavior  of  the  median  difficulty  word  "write”  104b 

XXIX.  Behavior  of  the  difficult  word  "sincerely"  104c 

XXX.  Correlations  between  repetition  and  difficulty 
based  on  words  common  to  each  speller  and  to 

the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  107 

XXXI.  Correlations  between  repetition  and  difficulty  based  on  words 

common  to  each  speller  and  to  the  Teachers  College  list  108 


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Table  Page 

XXXII.  Correlation  between  the  repetition  of  the  words  in  109 

the  speller  and  their  difficulty 
XXXIII.  Correlation  between  the  repetition  of  the  words  in 

the  speller  and  their  difficulty  111 

XXXIV.  Correlations  between  repetition  in  speller  and  in  life 
based  on  100  words  selected  at  random  from  the  Ayres- 
Teachers  College  list  and  common  to  each  of  the  spellers  115 

XXXV.  Percent  of  spellers  consisting  of  dictation  material  120 

XXXVI.  Amount  of  dictation  expressed  as  percent  that  the  words 

printed  in  dictation  are  of  all  the  printed  words  122 

XXXVII.  Grade  norms  for  dictation  material  based  on  medians 

of  eight  spellers  123 

XXXVIII.  Percent  certain  forms  of  presentation  is  of  all 

forms  of  presentation  126 

XXXIX.  Number  of  printed  words  in  each  form  of  presentation  128 

XL.  Percent  that  the  number  of  printed  words  in  each  form 

of  presentation  is  of  all  the  printed  words  in  the  book  130 

XLI.  Data  obtained  by  the  series  of  two  dimensional  check  lists  135 

XLII.  Conspectus  of  rankings  of  spellers  139 

XLIII . Norms  derived  from  present  practice  141 


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LIST  OF  FIGURES 

Figure  Page 

1 Number  of  different  words  by  grades  in  typical  spellers  34 

2 Range  of  median  grade  difficulties  for  ten  spellers  based 

on  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  63 

3 Range  of  median  grade  difficulties  for  ten  spellers  based 

on  Ayres  words  67 

4 Range  of  median  grade  difficulties  for  ten  spellers  based 

on  Teachers  College  words  70 

5 Grade  intervals  between  index  numbers  76 

6 Ability  and  difficulty  intervals  79 

7 Composite  grade  difficulty  in  relation  to  the  theoretical 

difficulty  and  to  the  grade  ability  88 

8 Percent  of  spellers  composed  of  dictation  material 

in  typical  spellers  125 


vii 


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

This  dissertation  was  made  possible  by  the  efforts  of  many  people  to 
whom  I am  greatly  indebted.  My  greatest  indebtedness  is  to  Dr.  B.  R.  Buckingham 
who  gave  assistance  by  encouragement,  by  technical  advice,  and  by  providing  cler- 
ical help  to  do  a major  portion  of  the  large  amount  of  mechanical  labor  involved 
in  carrying  on  the  various  activities  of  the  project. 

To  Dean  C.  E.  Chadsey,  I am  grateful  for  the  opportunity  which  he  gave 
me  to  continue  the  project  over  an  extended  period  of  time  and  for  encouragement 
and  counsel.  The  criticisms  of  Drs.  E.  H.  Cameron  and  Walter  S.  Monroe  were 
especially  valuable  and  thoroughly  appreciated. 

Finally,  I wish  to  express  my  appreciation  of  the  faithfulness  and  the 
carefulness  of  my  wife,  of  the  clerks  who  spent  countless  hours  on  uninteresting 
routine,  and  of  the  labors  of  many  investigators  whose  findings  have  helped  to 
make  possible  this  project. 


ANALYSIS  AND  MEASUREMENT 
0 F SPELLER  S 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION 
Statement  of  the  Project 

Within  the  last  decade  long  strides  have  been  made  in  the  field  of 
measuring  educational  products.  Tests  and  scales  have  been  devised  for  a major- 
ity of  the  subjects  in  the  elementary  and  secondary  school  curriculums.  The 
extent  of  the  use  of  these  instruments  for  measuring  the  educational  product  may 
be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  one  of  the  many  agencies  for  their  distribution 
in  this  country — the  Bureau  of  Educational  Research,  College  of  Education,  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois— distributed  last  year  over  two  and  one  half  million  copies. 
While,  however,  educational  scientists  have  gone  a long  way  towards  developing 
the  measurement  of  the  results  of  instruction,  they  have  done  comparatively  lit- 
tle in  measuring  the  instruments  of  instruction.  The  most  important  instrument 
of  instruction  is  the  textbook.  As  far  as  possible,  the  same  accurate  informa- 
tion concerning  them  should *be  had  as  we  now  have  concerning  the  product  of  our 
schools. 

In  the  science  of  engineering  and  in  any  of  the  laboratory  sciences 
the  expert  worker  has  accurate  and  detailed  knowledge  of  his  instruments . He 
knows  to  a high  degree  of  precision  the  accuracy  of  his  balances,  thermometers, 
and  calipers.  The  reliability  of  these  instruments  is  expressed  in  terms  of 
well-known  error  constants.  In  short,  the  instruments  are  accurately  calibrated. 
Similarly,  the  instruments  of  instruction  should  be  calibrated. 


A complete  analogy  with  the  measuring  devices  of  the  physical  sciences 


- 2 - 

would  demand  that  we  know  concerning  the  textbooks  not  only  their  contents  and 
the  methods  of  teaching  which  they  exemplify  but  also  the  precise  effect  in 
school  procedure  which  they  produce.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  educational  measure- 
ment, the  analogy  with  the  physical  sciences  is  imperfect.  The  degree  of  accura- 
cy of  a spring  balance  can  never  be  attained  in  the  field  of  human  behavior. 

This,  however,  does  not  justify  us  in  neglecting  to  secure  such  accuracy  as  we 
can.  In  the  case  of  textbooks  we  may  neither  know  now,  nor  ever  be  able  to  find 
out  the  precise  effect  which  a given  content  and  method  may  produce  in  a given 
individual.  However,  we  may  find  out  first  what  the  contents  of  the  book  are, 
second  what  relation  these  contents  bear  to  the  needs  of  life,  and  third  what 
opportunity  the  book  affords  for  the  mastery  of  these  contents.  What  use  is  made 
of  the  offerings  of  the  textbook — what  ability,  experience,  training,  and  effort, 
what  ideals  and  attitudes  may  be  possessed  by  the  teacher  and  the  pupil— must  be 
sought  outside  the  covers  of  the  textbook.  These  types  of  inquiry  await  the 
attention  of  investigators.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  such  larger  problems 
may  be  attacked  with  far  higher  prospects  of  success  if  the  groundwork  is  laid 
in  an  accurate  evaluation  of  the  textbook  itself.  Accordingly,  we  should  know 
the  contents  and  the  methods  used  in  the  instruments  of  instruction,  the  text- 
books, as  accurately  and  in  as  great  detail  as  the  science  of  education  can 
determine. 

Therefore,  the  original  purpose  of  this  project  was  to  examine  a num- 
ber of  different  types  of  textbooks,  but  it  was  found  after  careful  examination 
of  the  literature  that  detailed  subordinate  data  did  not  exist  for  any  of  the 
textbooks  except  spellers.  By  "subordinate  data"  we  mean  in  part  reliable  infor- 
mation as  to  the  demands  made  upon  the  schools  by  society.  For  example,  what 
subject  matter— what  knowledge,  habits,  and  appreciations— should  the  pupil  gain 
by  his  school  experience  in  a given  subject  in  order  that  he  may  be  able  to  meet 
the  needs  that  his  social  life  forces  upon  him?  In  the  subordinate  data  we  are, 
also,  looking  for  reliable  information  as  to  the  ability  of  the  pupil  to  handle 


- 3 - 


the  subject  matter  that  he  will  have  presented  to  hirn  in  order  that  he  may  be 
able  to  meet  the  demands  of  society.  For  example,  what  knowledge  is  he  able  to 
grasp  and  use,  what  habits  are  within  his  ability  to  develop,  and  what  appreci- 
ations is  he  able  to  acquire?  In  our  project  we  therefore  sought  trustworthy 
data  as  to  the  content  demanded  by  society  and  as  to  the  gradation  of  this  con- 
tent in  order  that  the  pupil  might  grasp  it  most  efficiently.  These  data  were 
necessary  before  the  contents  and  the  methods  of  textbooks  could  be  examined  and 
evaluated.  They  did  not  exist  to  a sufficient  degree  for  our  purposes  in  any 
subject  except  spelling. 

Consequently,  this  dissertation  is  concerned  with  a project  in  which 
the  purpose  was  to  analyze  and  to  measure  in  so  far  as  possible  the  contents  and 
the  methods  of  spelling  textbooks.  While  we  sense  the  crudeness  of  the  technique 
and  the  meagerness  of  the  results  for  this  project,  it  is  hoped  that  it  will  con- 
stitute the  first  of  a series  of  similar  projects  in  the  analysis  and  measurement 
of  the  instruments  of  instruction  which  will  be  made  as  rapidly  as  preliminary 
investigations  will  permit. 

Meed  for  the  Present  Project 

That  there  is  a felt  need  on  the  part  of  the  leaders  in  education  for 
projects  in  analyzing  and  measuring  textbooks,  that  is  the  instruments  of  in- 
struction, is  well  expressed  by  at  least  three  of  our  contemporary  schoolmen. 

The  following  quotation  from  a recent  address  given  by  Dr.  E.  L. 
Thorndike  while  dealing  specifically  with  arithmetics  might  with  equal  propri- 
ety have  dealt  with  spellers. 

"The  general  text,  indeed,  of  what  I have  to  say  will  be  this:  Nei- 

ther you,  nor  I,  nor  anyone  I know  of  really  knows  the  instruments  that  we  work 
with.  We  are  like  physicians  who  pour  drugs  out  of  a bottle  not  knowing  what 
is  in  it. 

"Evidently  we  require,  for  knowledge  of  the  instruments  of  instruction, 
the  same  careful  measuring  and  counting  and  full  analysis  which  we  have  learned 
to  apply  to  the  examination  of  children’s  achievements. 

"It  is  a question  of  some  consequence  to  know  how  much  habituation  is 
required  to  inculcate  certain  fundamental  facts  in  arithmetic.  We  cannot,  with- 
out having  somebody  follow  the  child  through  school  and  keep  track  of  all  the 


oral  drills,  making  discounts  for  times  he  is  inattentive  and  the  like,  get  meas- 
ures of  children's  actual  experiences.  We  can,  however,  as  I have  done,  count 
up  the  number  of  experiences  the  child  would  have  if  he  did  honestly  all  the  work 
outlined  in  some  standard  educational  instrument. 

"In  general,  the  neglect  of  childish  interests  does  not  seem  to  be  due 
to  provision  for  some  other  end,  but  to  the  same  inertia  of  tradition  which  has 
carried  over  the  problems  of  laying  walls  and  digging  wells  into  city  schools, 
whose  children  never  saw  a stone  wall  laid  or  a well  dug. 

"I  hope  I have  convinced  you  that  we  can  apply  scientific  methods  to 
measuring  the  instruments  of  instruction  with  the  same  hope  of  benefit  that  we 
have  received  from  its  application  to  measurements  of  school  achievement."1 

Dr.  C.  H.  Judd  well  expressed  the  need  for  such  a project  as  ours  in 
the  following  quotation: 

)"There  is  no  influence  in  American  schools  which  does  more  to  determine 
what  is  taught  to  pupils  than  does  the  text-book.  Yet  this  important  factor  in 
our  educational  system  has  until  recent  years  altogether  escaped  critical  study. 
— -It  is  put  into  the  hands  of  teachers  who  are  for  the  most  part  so  limited  in 
experience  and  training  that  they  never  think  of  questioning  the  method  suggested 
by  the  book  and  never  dream  of  doubting  the  validity  of  the  educational  princi- 
ples on  which  the  author's  selection  and  arrangement  of  material  are  based. 

"Every  text-book,  whatever  its  source,  has  characteristics  which  can 
be  accurately  tabulated  and  described.  Each  book  has  a kind  of  personality  which 
can  be  measured  no  lees  accurately  than  the  physical  characteristics  of  a man. 

^"Experience  leads  us  to  demand,  therefore,  some  kind  of  analysis  of 
books  which  will  clarify  the  teacher's  judgment.  The  text -bo ok  must  be  analyzed 
by  some  impersonal  method  in  order  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  teacher's  judgment. 


"Evidently  analysis  of  text-books  will  help  in  the  reforms  which  are 
coining  in  the  interests  of  economy. 

Following  Dr.  Judd's  article  in  succeeding  issues  of  the  Elementary 

School  Journal  were  descriptions  of  a number  of  projects  in  analyzing  textbooks, 

but  none  of  them  dealt  with  spellers. 

More  recently  Dr.  Buckingham  has  called  attention  to  the  need  for 

analyzing  and  measuring  the  instruments  of  instruction.  He  says: 

"The  practice  of  teachers  is  largely  controlled  by  the  text-book.  As 
is  frequently  pointed  out,  it  plays  a unique  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  American 

* 

^Thorndike, ~E.  L.:  "Recent  developments  in  educational  measurements, "Fifth  Con- 

ference _o^_Educational  Measurements , (Bulletin  of  the  Extension  Division,  Indiana 
University,  December,  1918.)  Pp.^-?2. 

2 

Judd,  C.  H.  "Analyzing  text-bocks."  Elementary  School  Journal,  19:143-154, 
October,  1918.  " 


- 5 - 

school.  It  is,  therefore,  highly  important  that  the  textbook  should  exemplify 
the  best  that  competent  research  has  established.  There  should  be  an  easy  trans- 
fer of  the  findings  of  investigators  to  the  content  of  school  books.  It  is  not 
enough  to  train  the  teacher  in  the  spirit  of  research;  the  textbook  should  be 
the  concrete  fruition  of  research. 

•'Investigations  looking  toward  the  improvement  of  textbooks  are  under 
way  in  a number  of  places  and  it  is  certain  that  this  type  of  investigation  will 
become  more  prevalent  when  its  importance  is  better  understood.  Titles  of  recent 
masters'  and  doctors'  theses  make  clear  the  fact  that  in  departments  of  education 
in  colleges  and  universities,  the  two  fields  of  research  which  are  regarded  as 
most  significant  are  the  study  of  teaching  methods  and  the  analysis  of  curricu- 
lums.  In  the  public  schools,  however,  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  teaching 
methods  and  the  curriculum  actually  put  into  practice  are  the  methods  and  the 
curriculum  of  the  textbook.  To  be  effective,  therefore,  it  is  in  the  textbooks 
that  the  new  methods  and  curriculums  must  be  expressed. 

"Although  we  are  in  the  midst  of  researches  whose  results  ought  to  be 
at  once  reflected  in  better  textbooks,  better  textbooks  are  slow  to  appear.  If 
it  is  a day  of  promise  in  research,  it  is  also  a day  of  stagnation  in  textbook 
making.  The  results,  the  methods,  and  the  spirit  of  research  will  never  become 
fully  applicable  in  the  work  of  the  schools  until  in  addition  to  their  apprehen- 
sion by  teachers,  they  find  expression  in  books  which  are  placed  in  the  hands  of 

pupils. 

Seven  months  later  Dr.  Buckingham  again  pointed  out  the  need  for  pro- 
jects similar  to  the  one  concerned  with  in  this  dissertation.  He  says: 

"In  the  textbook  business  it  is  clear  that  research  workers  in  educa- 
tion are  needed.  The  critical  attention  now  being  given  to  the  contents  of 
school  books  discloses  many  ways  in  which  they  may  be  improved.  Not  long  ago 
we  heard  a very  able  man,  himself  an  eminent  research  worker,  say  after  having 
examined  minutely  a large  number  of  texts,  that  most  books  were  adopted  without 
anyone  knowing  what  they  contained— neither  the  committee  that  judged  them  nor 
the  teachers  who  used  them.  Of  course,  he  did  not  mean  that  the  chief  topics 
presented  in  the  books  were  not  known— although  even  that  degree  of  knowledge  is 
often  lacking.  What  he  meant  v/as  that  the  contents  of  the  books  were  unanalyzed 
with  reference  to  desirable  objectives."4 

The  preceding  quotations  put  the  issue  clearly.  These  writers  are 
asking  that  projects  in  analyzing  and  measuring  the  textbooks  by  the  modern  tools 
of  research  and  in  the  light  of  recent  investigations  be  carried  on.  Our  project 
is  designed  to  meet  their  demands  in  one  definite  field,  namely,  that  of  spelling. 


3 ' - 1 11  1 ■ 

Buckingham,  B.  R.  "Textbooks:  their  cost  and  improvement"  (Editorial).  Jour- 

nal  of  Educational  Research,  1:222-24,  March,  1920. 

^Buckingham,  B.  R.  "Research  in  textbook  publishing"  (Editorial).  Journal  of 
Educational  Research,  2:670-72,  October,  1920. 


- 6 - 


Limitations  o£  the  Pro  j ect 

Our  activities  were  limited  to  analyzing  and  measuring  certain  aspects 
of  the  subject  matter  and  the  methods  of  presentations  found  in  ten  recently 
copyrighted,  popular  spelling  textbooks  designed  for  the  grades  of  the  elementary 
schools.  The  aspects  examined  are:  (a)  the  extent,  the  selection,  and  the  grada- 
tion of  the  vocabulary;  (b)  the  repetition  of  words;  and  (c)  the  following  forms 
of  presentation— column,  column  review,  supplementary,  dictation,  dictation  re- 
view, word  building,  word  analysis,  column  homonyms,  dictation  homonyms,  review 
homonyms,  phonics,  and  plural  formation.  (For  the  detailed  interpretation  that 
we  made  of  these  forms,  the  reader  should  consult  Chapter  II.) 

From  the  foregoing  statement  of  limitations  it  may  be  seen  that  in  the 
first  place  we  paid  no  attention  to  other  forms  of  English  than  spelling.  We 
made  no  study  of  the  offerings  in  the  spellers  in  the  way  of  memory  gems — how 
many  or  how  much,  source,  adaptability  to  the  interests,  needs,  and  problems  of 
the  students,  etc.  We  did  not  study  punctuation  marks,  abbreviations,  letter 

writing, etc.  Many  of  these  forms  of  English  are  found  in  the  spellers  and  prop- 

erly so,  especially  if  they  are  introduced  for  spelling  purposes.  However,  we 
found  it  necessary  to  pass  by  this  phase  of  the  spellers. 

In  the  second  place,  we  did  not  examine  every  aspect  of  spelling.  We 
paid  no  attention  to  syllabication,  diacritical  marks,  directions  to  teachers, 
directions  to  pupils  on  how  to  study  the  lessons,  rules  for  spelling,  prefixes 
and  suffixes,  provisions  for  enlarging  and  enriching  the  pupil's  vocabulary, 
"blunder  spots,"  forms  of  grouping,  proper  names,  pictures,  cost,  quality  of 
paper,  etc. 

All  the  preceding  items  and  many  implied  by  "etc."  should  be  taken 

into  consideration  in  selecting  a speller.  Hence,  it  is  seen  that  our  study  is 

not  complete  for  this  purpose.  We  are  merely  concerned  with  the  word  offerings — 
the  extent,  the  selection,  the  gradation,  and  the  repetition  of  words — and  with 


- 7 - 


certain  forms  of  presentation.  Many  of  the  items,  however,  with  which  our  pro- 
ject is  not  concerned  sire  obvious.  The  real  difficulty  in  judging  a speller  lies 
precisely  in  reaching  a conclusion  regarding  the  vocabulary — using  vocabulary  in 
the  broad  sense.  However  important  other  items  may  be,  no  item  vies  in  importance 
with  the  one  in  which  we  are  concerned. 

Earlier  Investigations 

Some  preliminary  work  in  analyzing  and  measuring  spellers  was  done  by 
hooK  and  O’Shea.  Their  study  is  well  summed  up  in  the  following  quotations: 

’’Let  us  first  examine  the  word  lists  of  the  three  spellers  previously 
referred  to,  and  see  in  how  far  the  ordinary  text  meets  the  requirements  in 
respect  to  a spelling  vocabulary.  The  relation  of  the  vocabularies  of  the  three 
texts,  excluding  proper  names  and  foreign  terms,  is  as  follows: 


Speller  A 

Speller  B 

Speller 

Words  found  in  one  text  only- — . — -= 

5785 

1082 

Words  found  in  Spellers  A and  B — 

633 

633 

Words  found  in  Spellers  A and  C — — 

132 

132 

Words  found  in  Spellers  B and  C— - 

3101 

3101 

Words  found  in  all  three  texts—— 

1613 

1613 

1613 

Total  for  each  text 

2521 

11132 

5928 

Total  of  different  words  for  all 

texts, 

12489 

"The  variation  among  these  books  with  respect  to  extent  of  spelling 
vocabulary  indicates  that  the  makers  of  spelling-books  differ  in  their  opinions. 
.....Not  only  in  regard  to  total  number  of  words  are  there  striking  differences, 
but  also  in  regard  to  community  of  vocabulary.  Though  Speller  A has  less  than 
forty-three  percent  of  the  vocabulary  of  C,  hardly  seventy  percent  of  the  list 
is  the  same  as  C’s.  That  is,  the  chances  of  finding  any  given  word  of  A' s vocab- 
ulary in  C are  less  than  seven  in  ten.  Conversely,  the  chance  of  finding  any 
given  word  of  C's  vocabulary  in  A is  less  than  three  in  ten.  Of  the  total  of 
twelve  thousand,  four  hundred  eighty-nine  different  words,  only  sixteen  hundred 
thirteen,  or  less  than  thirteen  percent,  are  common  to  all  the  spellers. 

"If  the  lists  of  the  spelling-books  be  tested  by  the  lists  secured 
from  the  correspondents,  it  develops  that  four  thousand,  three  hundred  fifty-one 
different  words,  or  only  thirty-five  percent  of  the  total  ever  apoeared  in  the 
letters. 

The  results  of  the  investigations  of  Cook  and  O’Shea  appeared  in  1914, 
thus  antedating  the  copyrights  of  the  spellers  used  in  this  project.  Perhaps 
one  is  inclined  to  believe  that  spellers  prepared  since  that  date  or  revised 


'Cook,  W.  A.  and  O’Shea,  M.  V.  The  child  and  his  spelling.  Indianapolis: 
Bobbs-Merrill  Company,  1914.  Pp.  225-26. 


I 


. 


V 


. . I 


. 


: 


. 


' 


- 8 - 


I 


since  then  have  met  all  the  important  negative  criticisms  made  by  Cook  and  O'Shea. 
Indeed  an  examination  of  the  prefaces  of  the  ten  spellers  used  in  this  project 
might  lead  the  reader  to  feel  that  all  that  is  desired  in  a good  spelling  book 
has  been  incorporated  in  each  one  of  them.  The  following  quotations  bear  espe- 
cially on  the  problems  attacked  in  this  dissertation; 

Book  I.  — "The  selection  of  these  three  thousand  words  represents  a vast 
amount  of  labor  extending  over  a period  of  several  years.  Thousands  of  children's 
compositions  from  the  H-—  School  and  other  schools  have  been  examined,  and  use 
has  been  made  of  the  scientific  studies  of  adults'  and  children's  vocabularies 
by  Jones,  Ayres,  Pryor,  Eldridge,  Smith,  Wool  folk,  Cook  and  O'Shea,  and  Chancel- 
lor." 

Book  II.— "Free  use  also  has  been  made  of  the  Ayres  list,  Dr.  Jones 
list  of  so-called  'one  hundred  demons',  and  other  well-known  collections." 

Book  III. --"The  words  finally  selected  are  those  that  have  been  found 
by  recognized  authorities  to  be  the  most  useful  in  everyday  life." 

Book  IV. --"The  vocabulary  of  this  book  has  resulted  from  a comparative 
study  of  the  lists  published  by  these  investigators  (scientific)  and  other  lists 
from  reliable  sources.  The  effort  has  been  to  include  all  words  needed  by  the 
average  person,  and  to  review  them  so  frequently  that  they  will  be  thoroughly 
learned." 

Book  V. --"Standard  word-lists  in  harmony  with  Jones,  Pryor,  Ayres,  and 
other  lists." 

Book  VI •—"The  words  have  not  been  chosen  haphazard,  but  have  been 
selected  on  the  basis  of  recent  experimental  studies,  showing  the  commonly  used 
words  in  the  writing  vocabulary  of  pupils  and  the  corresponding  spelling-diffi- 
culty of  these  words." 

Book  VII. — "In  its  (the  book's)  preparation  a careful  comparison  was 
made  of  the  vocabularies  of  several  of  the  most  popular  spelling  books  of  the 
day  in  respect  to  both  gradation  and  selection.  Paralleling  this,  the  various 
recent  tests  and  investigations,  notably  those  of  Ayres,  Jones,  and  Cook  and 
O'Shea  have  been  checked." 

Book  VIII.— "The  vocabulary  of  this  book  is  based  upon  the  lists  pub-  l 
lished  by  various  scientific  investigators  in  recent  years,  supplemented  by 
lists  from  other  reliable  sources." 

Book  IX.— "The  aim  throughout  has  been  to  present  words  related  to  the 
needs  of  each  grade  as  determined  by  the  experience  and  observation  of  skilled 
teachers,  and  by  the  results  of  recent  scientific  investigations  as  to  the  words 
in  general  use  both  in  and  out  of  the  schoolroom." 

Book  X.--"The  vocabulary  of  the  lessons  is  taken  from  a compilation 
which  Doctor  H.  has  made  of  nine  scientific  investigations  of  the  words  used  in  l 
writing  letters. 

"The  words  have  been  graded  in  the  following  manner;  On  the  basis  of  l 


- 9 - 

Doctor  H.'s  compilation  of  correspondence  vocabularies,  all  of  the  4576  words 
were  ranked  according  to  the  frequency  with  which  they  are  used  in  correspondence 
On  the  basis  of  Doctor  A. ' s study  of  the  difficulty  of  these  words  in  the  various 
grades,  the  words  were  arranged  in  order  of  ease  of  spelling.  With  these  two 
sources  of  data,  the  lessons  are  arranged  so  that  in  general  the  easiest  words 

and  those  most  commonly  and  frequently  used  are  placed  in  the  lower  grades 

It  is  clear  that  the  lessons  increase  gradually  in  difficulty  in  each  successive 
grade . " 

However,  an  analysis  and  measurement  conducted  not  long  since  on  five 
spelling  books  of  recent  date  of  publication  raises  sharply  the  question  whether 
the  claims  made  in  the  prefaces  of  spelling  texts  are  altogether  lived  up  to  in 
the  preparation  of  the  texts.  The  results  of  this  investigation  are  summarized 
in  the  following  quotation: 

"On  the  whole  this  study  shows  a great  range  in  the  size  of  the  vocab- 
ulary—from  2991  in  the  Peirce  speller  to  6270  in  the  Champion  speller.  It  also 
shows  the  significant  fact  that  little  relation  exists  between  the  mere  size  of 
the  vocabulary  and  the  number  of  the  most  commonly  used  words  included.  For 
example,  the  Champion  speller  with  6270  words  contains  but  49*5  percent  of  the 
Anderson  list  while  the  Jones  Speller  with  4532  words  contains  6l.3  percent  of 
the  list— which  fact  signifies  that  the  selection  of  a spelling  vocabulary  is 
something  more  than  merely  collecting  so  many  words.  The  study  also  shows  that 
the  ratio  of  the  number  of  commonly  used  words  to  the  total  number  of  words  in 
the  book  varies  from  41.8  percent  in  the  Jones  speller  to  22.7  percent  in  the 
Champion  speller.  In  cold  facts  these  figures  mean,  if  we  may  safely  argue  from 
the  basis  of  the  Anderson  list,  that  from  $Q  to  77  percent  of  the  time  devoted 
to  spelling  within  the  public  school  is  spent  upon  words  not  commonly  used " 

"Such  investigations  require  time  and  energy;  but  it  can  be  safely, 
predicted  that  until  they  are  made  we  shall  continue  to  select  books  which  cause 
children  to  spend  their  time  upon  words  which  they  will  probably  never  use,  and 
we  shall  continue  to  select  books  incorporating  inferior  methods."® 

Another  investigation  made  recently  is  that  of  Tidyman.  He  says: 

The  author  lias  made  a study  of  thirteen  spellers  now  in  general  use 
to  determine  what  percent  of  the  words  of  these  spellers  are  contained  in  (a) 

3324  words  common  to  two  or  more  of  the  six  investigations  reported  above,  and 
( ) all  the  6250  different  words  found  in  the  several  investigations.  The  com- 
parisons  were  based  upon  random  selections  of  pages  in  the  texts  in  two  grades, 

IV  and  VII.  The  results  show  that  on  the  average  only  19  percent  of  the  words 
in  Grade  VII  are  contained  in  the  smaller  list,  and  only  35  percent  are  con- 
tained  in  the  larger  list.  For  Grade  IV  the  corresponding  figures  are  57  percent 
and  74  percent.  That  is  to  say,  about  four-fifths  of  the  words  of  Grade  VII  and 
wo-fifths  of  the  words  of  Grade  IV  are  not  found  in  the  list  of  3324  words  com- 
mon to  two  or  more  of  the  six  investigations;  about  two-thirds  of  the  words  of 
Grade  VII  and  one- fourth  of  the  words  of  Grade  IV  are  not  found  even  once  in  the 
6250  words  of  the  six  different  investigations."' 

Jfaody,  C.  Application  of  scientific  method  in  evaluating  the  subject  matter 
of  spellers,"  Journal  of  Educational  Research,  1:127-28,  February,  1920. 

7 

F*  The  teaching  of  spelling.  Yonkers-on-Hudson:  World  Book  Com- 
pany, lyly . p.  y. 





■ 




. 


-10- 


On  the  one  hand,  such  studies  as  the  preceding  ones  show  how  investi- 
gators were  attempting  to  arrive  at  a technique  of  analysis  of  spellers  and  an 
adequate  means  of  evaluating  the  content  of  the  books  after  it  had  been  discov- 
ered, while  textbook  makers  grasping  at  the  results  of  the  investigators  were 
claiming  to  have  exemplified  these  results  in  their  textbooks.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  school  people  were  feeling  the  urge  toward  something  more  fundamental 
and  accurate  in  judging  the  content  and  the  methods  of  teaching  in  the  spellers 
than  had  been  developed.  One  form  in  which  this  feeling  expressed  itself  was  in 
the  derivation  of  score  cards  for  guidance  in  judging  the  textbooks. 

Score  Cards 

The  score  cards  developed  by  the  school  people  served,  and  still  serve, 
in  the  absence  of  something  better,  an  excellent  purpose.  They  are  decidedly 
better  than  no  plan  for  selecting  spellers.  However,  their  chief  virtue  lies 
in  the  fact  that  they  point  out  the  more  important  items  that  should  be  taken 
into  consideration  in  judging  the  content  and  the  methods  of  teaching  in  the 
spellers  that  are  being  examined.  The  two  score  cards  that  follow  are  typical 
of  the  better  ones. 


Joliet  Spelling  Score  Card 

Rate  I on  the  basis  of  30 
II  on  the  basis  of  40 
III  on  the  basis  of  20 
IV  on  the  basis  of  10. 


8 


I.  Vocabulary— — 

1.  Number  of  words. 

2.  Selection  of  words. 

a.  Child’s  vocabulary. 

b.  Provision  for  enlargement  of 
vocabulary. 

c.  Necessary  vocabulary  for 
future  as  determined  by 
modern  surveys. 


.30 


II.  Organization-— 

1.  Gradation. 

2.  Grouping. 


• 40 


Stoops,  R.  0.  "The  use  of  score  cards  for  judging  textbooks,"  American  School 
Board  Journal,  March,  1918.  pp.  21-22. 


i 


CJ  O') 


- 11  - 


a.  Sound,  syllabication,  derivation. 

b.  Use,  association,  related  meaning. 

c.  Unusual  spellings,  homonyms,  syno- 
nyms, antonyms. 

d.  Number  of  new  words  and  methods 
of  introducing  them. 

3.  Dictation  exercises. 

a.  Word  building. 

b.  Application  of  meaning. 

c.  Attention  to  visual  emphasis. 

d.  Wholesome  in  thought. 

4.  Comprehensive  and  frequent  reviews 
and  contests. 

5*  Appeal  to  child  through 

a.  Illustration. 

b.  Quotations. 

c.  Mechanical  devices. 

d.  Interesting  exercises. 

III.  Aids  in  developing  independent 

spelling  ability — — — 20 

1.  Phonics,  syllabication,  accent, 
diacritical  marking,  in  so  far 
as  they  lead  to  efficiency  in 
spelling. 

2.  Definite  help  leading  to  making 
of  rules. 

3.  Directions  for  children  and  for 
teachers. 

4.  Training  in  the  use  of  a dictionary. 

5 • Attention  to  pronunciation. 

IV.  Mechanical  make-up — — — — — — .--IQ 

1.  Paper  and  binding. 

2.  Type  and  arrangement  of  page. 

3.  Number  of  volumes. 

4.  Cost  of  set. 

TOTAL 

RANK 


9 

Cincinnati  Spelling  Score  Card 

Points  to  be  considered  in  judging  the  quality  of  texts  in  spelling. 

1.  The  words  listed  should  be  those  which  investigations  have  shown  pupils 

will  need  most  in  their  written  work  at  school  and  after  they  leave  school. 
. Provision  should  be  made  for  frequent  review  of  words  commonly  misspelled. 

. Words  should  be  listed  so  as  to  economize  efforts  in  teaching,  i.  e., 
grouped  as  roots,  prefixes,  suffixes,  etc. 

4.  Suggestions  to  teachers  should  offer  means  of  presenting  words  with  a 
strong  initial  appeal,  for  analyzing  difficulties,  for  discovering  types 
of  errors,  and  for  following  up  spelling  difficulties  in  all  written  work. 

o ' | ■ ' ' ■ — ■ ' — 

Mead,  Cyrus  D.  "The  best  method  of  selecting  textbooks,"  Educational  Admini- 
stration and  Supervision.  4:68,  February,  1918. 


- 12  - 


5*  Diacritical  marks  should  be  used  sufficiently  to  make  children  self-helpful 
in  consulting  the  dictionary. 

6.  Dictation  exercises  should  receive  due  attention. 

After  a careful  study  of  these  score  cards,  one  concludes  that  they  are 
merely  suggestions  of  what  to  look  for  in  a good  speller.  For  example,  the  Jol- 
iet Spelling  Score  Card  indicates  under  the  caption  "vocabulary"  that  the  number 
of  words  and  the  selection  of  words  should  be  considered,  but  nothing  is  said 
about  what  should  be  the  number  of  words  or  what  words  are  in  the  child's  vocab- 
ulary, ho v/  enlargement  of  the  vocabulary  should  be  provided  for  or  what  are  the 
necessary  words  for  the  future  as  determined  by  modern  investigation.  In  this 
score  card  "gradation”  is  to  be  considered  but  how  it  is  to  be  determined  is  not 
indicated. 

Looking  at  the  captions  of  the  Cincinnati  Spelling  Score  Card,  one  sees 
that  "The  words  listed  should  be  those  which  investigations  have  shown  pupils 
will  need  most  in  their  written  work  at  school  and  after  they  leave  school." 
Granting  that  we  have  by  investigation  discovered  the  words  that  pupils  should 
study,  we  have  the  whole  problem  of  analysis  of  spellers  to  find  out  how  these 
life  words  overlap  the  speller  words.  This  dissertation  attempts  to  fill  the 
breach  and  to  supply  some  of  the  needed  information  in  this  respect.  Again,  this 
score  card  says  that  "dictation  exercises  should  receive  due  attention.”  This 
assumes  two  things:  (l)  that  the  judge  knows  how  much  attention  should  be  given 
to  dictation,  and  (2)  that  he  knows  how  much  is  actually  given  in  the  speller 
that  is  being  judged.  In  cur  project  we  make  no  attempt  to  answer  the  first 
question,  but  we  devote  particular  attention  to  the  second. 

Similar  criticisms  could  be  made  of  many  of  the  captions  in  the  two 
score  cards,  but  it  is  our  purpose  merely  to  call  attention  to  some  of  the  prob- 
lems that  must  be  solved  before  the  score  cards  can  be  used  most  efficiently. 

In  other  v/ords,  the  score  cards  deal  with  the  qualitative  aspects  of  the  spellers? 
while  our  project  begins  with  the  qualitative  aspects  as  a point  of  departure 
and  finds  quantitative  expressions  for  some  of  the  more  important  aspects  of 


- 13  - 


spoiling  textbooks  for  the  elementary  grades. 

The  earlier  quantitative  investigations  of  spellers  were  limited  in 
general  to  one  phase  of  the  question,  namely,  the  selection  of  the  words  in  the 
texts.  Moreover,  these  investigations  were  for  the  most  part  sharply  limited 
either  in  the  number  of  texts  or  in  the  number  of  school  grades  considered.  The 
important  questions  of  the  gradation  of  words  and  of  the  pedagogy  of  each  book 
were  left  untouched.  As  to  the  lack  of  consideration  of  the  gradation  of  words, 
the  failure  was  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  proper  instruments  for  measuring 
the  difficulty  of  words  had  not  been  derived  at  the  time  the  investigations  were 
made. 

Nevertheless,  the  work  of  these  early  investigators  and  the  efforts  of 
the  school  people  to  derive  a satisfactory  score  card  for  measuring  the  texts 
in  spelling  should  not  be  underestimated.  They  blazed  the  way  for  future  inves- 
tigators by  pointing  out  some  of  the  important  phases  of  spelling  books  that 
should  be  investigated.  Further,  they  gave  clews  as  to  the  proper  technique  to 
be  used,  and  the  nature  of  the  instruments  of  investigation  that  should  be  devel- 
oped. They  showed  that  we  should  have  measures  for  the  selection  of  the  words, 
for  the  gradation  of  the  words  and  for  the  pedagogy  that  is  exemplified  in  the 
texts. 

Bases  o_f  the  pro  ject 

The  bases  or  points  of  departure  of  this  project  are  the  investiga- 
tions (a)  in  the  selection  of  words,  (b)  in  the  difficulty  of  words,  and  (c)  in 
the  spelling  ability  of  the  children  in  the  different  grades.  These  three  lines 
of  research  give  a body  of  valuable  data  and  furnish  standards  by  which  it  is 
possible  to  arrive  at  somewhat  more  definite  conclusions  concerning  spellers, 
than  concerning  any  other  kind  of  textbook. 

The  selection  of  words. ---In  the  selection  of  words  that  should  con- 
stitute the  spelling  vocabulary  for  the  elementary  schools,  there  has  been  a 


- 14  - 


long  line  of  detailed  researches.  Among  the  more  careful  ones  should  be  men- 
tioned Ayres's10  work  in  which  he  made  up  a list  of  one  thousand  words  occurring 
most  frequently  in  the  written  correspondence  that  he  examined,  and  the  words 
derived  by  other  investigators  from  similar  sources. 

Cook  and  O'Shea11  published  lists  aggregating  3200  words  derived  from 
an  extended  investigation  of  the  written  correspondence  of  thirteen  adults.  The 
frequency  of  occurrence  per  two  hundred  thousand  running  words  was  published  with 
the  words.  This  made  it  possible  for  other  investigators  to  make  extended  use 
of  the  data. 

12 

Eldridge  published  six  thousand  common  English  words  which  he  derived 
from  an  examination  of  newspaper  articles.  He,  too,  gave  the  frequency  of  his 
words,  thus  making  it  possible  to  compare  his  work  with  that  of  the  investigators 
mentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraphs. 

Under  the  direction  of  Professors  Briggs  and  Kelley  of  Teachers  College, 

13 

the" second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words"  were  determined  by 
compounding  list  5 of  the  Eldridge  list  and  lists  1,  2,  and  3 prepared  by  Cook 
and  0 Shea.  From  the  list  obtained  in  this  manner,  Ayres's  thousand  words, 

Jones’s  "demons"  and  certain  other  words  were  excluded. 

14 

Anderson  derived  three  thousand  words  from  an  exhaustive  investiga- 
tion of  the  correspondence  of  adults.  He  gave  the  frequencies  of  his  words. 

Ayres,  L.  P.  Measuring  scale  for  ability  in  spelling.  New  York;  Russell  Sage 
Foundation,  1915* 

Cook,  'J7.  A.  and  O'Shea,  M.  V.  The  child  and  his  spelling.  Indianapolis: 
Bobbs-Merrill,  1914. 

12^ 

Eldridge,  R.  C.  Six  thousand  common  English  words.  (Published  privately.) 
Niagara  Falls,  1911.  ' 

13 

"Sixteen  spelling  scales,"  Teachers  College  Record.  21:337-91,  September,  1920.' 

14 

Anderson,  W.  N.  The  determination  of  a spelling  vocabulary  based  upon  written 
correspondence . (Unpublished  doctors'  dissertation.)  University  of  Iowa,  1917*  f 


- 15  - 


By  combining  two  or  more  studies  it  is  often  possible  to  secure  a more 
useful  product  than  was  afforded  by  the  component  studies.  As  has  been  indicated, 
tnis  was  done  by  Ayres  in  deriving  his  so-called  "thousand  commonest  words"  and 
again  by  the  Teachers  College  students  in  deriving  their  so-called  "second  and 
third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words."  It  is  clear  that  we  may  make  one 
more  synthesis— one  that  is  obviously  intended  by  the  authors  of  the  "Sixteen 
Spelling  Scales" — and  assuming  that  these  words  are  what  they  are  claimed  to  be 
in  the  reports,  we  may  obtain  the  three  thousand  most  frequently  used  words. 

This  may  be  done  by  combining  the  Ayres  "thousand  commonest  words"  and  the 
Teachers  College  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words."  The 
frequencies  of  these  three  thousand  words  have  a working  reliability  expressed 
quantitatively  and  we  can  assume  that  they  form  a measure  of  the  words  that 
should  be  taught  to  the  children  in  the  elementary  schools.  The  frequency  of 
these  words  was  derived  from  their  use  in  their  natural  setting,  that  is,  in 
correspondence,  in  newspapers,  in  the  Bible,  and  in  other  literary  sources.  We 
thus  have  a quantitative  expression  of  the  demands  of  society  concerning  the  use 
of  these  words. 

The  Difficulty  of  Words 

We  must  determine  the  suitability  of  the  words  in  the  spellers  not  only 
by  the  demands  that  society  makes  upon  the  schools,  but  also  with  reference  to 
the  ability  of  the  pupils.  In  general,  with  advance  in  grades  the  pupils  are 
able  to  learn  to  spell  more  difficult  words.  Therefore,  we  should  have  a measure 
of  uhe  difficulty  of  the  words  in  each  grade  in  order  that  we  may  determine 
whether  or  not  they  become  more  difficult  with  advancing  grades,  and  whether  or 
not  they  are  in  this  respect  adapted  to  the  ability  of  the  pupils.  However,  even 
though  the  difficulty  of  the  words  increases  with  advancing  grades,  it  does  not 
follow  that  they  are  best  suited  to  the  ability  of  the  pupils,  because  the  words 
in  their  entirety  may  be  too  easy,  or  too  difficult.  That  is,  we  must  have  a 


- 16  - 


measure  of  the  difficulty  of  words  and  also  a measure  for  the  spelling  ability 
of  pupils;  and  these  two  measures  must  be  expressed  in  the  same  units.  Fortu- 
nately for  our  project,  a considerable  body  of  data  on  the  difficulty  of  words 
and  on  the  ability  of  pupils  has  been  derived  by  careful  researches.  We  shall 
cite  the  investigations  dealing  with  the  ability  of  pupils  in  the  following  sec- 
tion and  in  this  section  we  shall  cite  only  some  of  the  more  important  investi- 
gations of  the  difficulty  of  words. 

Buckingham1^  determined  by  extended  experimentation  the  difficulty  of 
a small,  selected  list  of  words  and  expressed  their  difficulty  in  terms  of  dis- 
tances  from  an  estimated  zero  of  spelling  difficulty.  Ayres  determined  the 
difficulty  of  his  thousand  words  and  published  a spelling  scale.  For  the  "second 
and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words"  in  the  Teachers  College  Record1"^ 
the  spelling  difficulty  of  each  word  was  determined  and  expressed  in  terms  of 
distances  from  the  Buckingham  zero  of  difficulty.  Ashbaugh  took  the  three 
thousand  words  derived  by  Anderson  and  found  by  extended  work  the  difficulty  of 
each  one  for  each  grade. 

We  decided  to  use  as  our  standard  for  measuring  the  gradation  of  the 
words  in  the  texts  a combination  of  the  Ayres  "thousand  commonest  words"  and  of 
the  Teachers  College  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words." 

The  difficulty  of  the  words  in  the  Teachers  College  list  was  expressed  in  terms 
of  units  of  distance  from  the  Buckingham  zero,  but  Ayres  expresses  the  difficulty 
of  his  words  in  a different  way.  It  was  possible,  however,  by  the  aid  of  a table 

15  ~~  ~ — — — — — ■ ~ — --- * — " ■ ■ ■ — 

Buckingham,  B.  R.  Spelling  ability;  its  determination  and  distribution. 
Teachers  College,  1913. 

16 

Ayres,  L.  P.  Measuring  scale  for  ability  in  spelling.  New  York:  Russell  Sa°-e 

Foundation,  1915 . 

17 

"Sixteen  spelling  scales,"  Teachers  College  Record,  21:337-91,  September,  1920. 

18 

Ashbaugh,  E.  J.  "Iowa  Spelling  Scales,"  University  of  Iowa  Extension  Bulletin, 
University  of  Iowa,  1919. 


- 17 


of  equivalents  derived  by  the  authors  of  the  Teachers  College  list  to  express 
the  Ayres  words  in  the  sarne  units  of  difficulty  as  those  used  by  the  Teachers 
College  students.  Thus  these  two  lists  combined  give,  as  has  been  said,  a three- 
thousand-word  list  in  which  the  difficulty  of  each  word  is  expressed  in  units  of 
distance  from  the  zero  of  spelling  difficulty.  This  greatly  expedited  our  in- 
vestigations; and  we  therefore  chose  to  make  the  combination  in  the  manner  indi- 
cated rather  than  use  the  Ander son-Ashbaugh  list  and  make  the  calculations 
necessary  to  express  the  difficulty  of  all  the  words  in  unit  distances  from  zero. 

Spelling  Ability 

A third  line  of  investigation  has  added  materially  to  the  rigor  with 

19 

which  the  present  project  could  be  carried  out.  Buckingham  ' calculated  the 
median  spelling  ability  of  the  pupils  in  each  grade  and  expressed  it  in  terms 
of  distances  above  an  estimated  zero  of  spelling  ability.  This  makes  it  possi- 
ble to  pass  reasonably  reliable  judgment  as  to  the  suitability  of  the  words  in 

a given  grade  for  the  pupils  of  that  grade. 

2o 

Ayres  in  deriving  his  scale  for  spelling  ability  showed  increments 

of  ability  from  a lower  grade  to  a higher  one  although  he  did  not  attempt  to 

locate  the  zero  point  or  the  point  where  spelling  ability  begins. 

21 

Ashbaugh  xn  deriving  his  spelling  scale  showed  that  spelling  ability 
increased  from  grade  to  grade,  but  he  followed  Ayres  and  did  not  attempt  to 
locate  the  zero  point. 

These  investigations  of  the  selection  of  words,  of  the  difficulty  of 
words,  and  of  the  grade  ability  of  the  pupils  in  spelling  offer  unique  advan- 
tages to  one  carrying  on  a project  in  analyzing  and  measuring  textbooks  in  spell- 
ing that  are  not  found  at  present  in  any  of  the  other  textbooks  in  use  in  the 

elementary  schools.  Realizing  these  advantages,  we  have  undertaken  the  present 
^Buckingham,  Ibid. 

20 

Ayres,  Ibid. 

21 

“'Ashbaugh,  Ibid. 


-19- 


CHAPTER  II 
PROCEDURE  IN  ANALYZING  THE  SPELLERS 
Sp ellers  Analyzed 

In  planning  our  project  we  finally  decided  after  considerable  pre- 
liminary work  to  analyze  and  measure  within  limits  heretofore  specified  ten 
recent,  popular  spellers  designed  for  the  grades  in  the  elementary  schools  of 
the  United  States, 

The  clearest  principle  of  selection  was  that  the  texts  should  be  of 
recent  publication.  As  far  a3  popularity  wa3  concerned  we  depended  on  the 
statements  of  publishers.  We  made  no  effort  to  determine  the  amount  of  sales 
of  the  books.  Therefore,  the  fact  that  we  selected  a given  book  does  not  mean 
that  it  had  a larger  volume  of  sales  than  some  other  book  that  we  did  not 
select.  All  of  the  ten  books  except  two  were  published  by  different  companies, 

A conspectus  of  the  ten  spellers  used  in  this  study  is  shown  in  Table  I. 

Procedure  in_  Analyzing  the  Spellers 

A trial  set  of  instructions  to  clerks  for  copying  off  the  words  of 
the  spellers  was  drawn  up.  After  experimenting  with  this  set  on  a number  of 
pages  selected  at  random  from  three  or  four  of  the  spellers,  the  final  instruct- 
ions were  written.  Questions  of  interpretation  that  arose  as  «he  &ork  pro= 
greased  were  noted  for  each  book. 

Instructions  for  copying  contents  of  spellers  on  cards. --The  final 
set  of  instructions  follow: 

1.  All  words,  abbreviations,  and  contractions  presented  in  the  spellers  in 
columns,  in  dictation,  in  quotations,  and  in  phrases  when  clearly  set 
out  as  lessons  for  purposes  of  teaching  the  spelling  of  the  word3  con- 
tained therein,  were  copied  on  inch  by  3 inch  cards  provided  for  the 
purpose.  The  usual  method  of  indicating  a lesson  unit  is  by  placing 


' . \ ' 


. 

' 


; 


. 


TABLE  I 

SPELLING  TEXTBOOKS  STUDIED 


Code 

Number 

Text 

Author 

Date  of 
Copyright 

Publisher 

Number 

of 

Books 

For 

Grades 

Number 

of 

Pages 

I 

Essentials 
of  Spelling 

Pearson 

and 

Suzzallo 

1919 

American 

1 

2-8 

xii 

+ 

196 

II 

The  New-Idea 
Speller 

Leiper, 

Foster, 

and 

Weathers 

1919 

Ginn 

1 

2-8 

xii 

+ 

236 

III 

The  Ideal 

Speller  (Revised) 

Willard, 

Richards, 

and 

Brophy 

1919 

Barnes 

2 

2-8 

xvi 

+ 

469 

IV 

Everyday  Words 

Wohlfarth, 

Pratt, 

and 

Wetherow 

1916 

World 

1 

2-8 

208 

V 

A New  Spelling  Book 

Alexander 

1918, 

1919 

Longmans 

1 

3-8 

xxiv 

+ 

168 

VI 

£1  son’s  Spelling 
Book 

El  son 
and 
Haste 

1917 

Berry 

1 

3-8 

ix 

+ 

282 

VII 

Aldine  Speller3- 

Bryce 

and 

Sherman 

1916 

Newson 

4 

1-8 

304 

VIII 

New-World  Speller13 

Wohlfarth 

and 

Rogers 

1908, 

1910, 

1917 

World 

3 

1-8 

344 

IX 

Elementary-School 

Speller 

Hunt 

1916 

American 

1 

3-8 

176 

X 

Horn-Ashbaugh 
Spelling  Book 

Horn 

and 

Ashbaugh 

1920 

Lippincott 

1 

1-8 

105 

Material  for  Grade  1 omitted  from  consideration. 


Material  for  Grade  1 and  for  grades  beyond  the  eighth  omitted  from 
consideration. 


£> 

■ 


' 


i! 


- pl- 
over a group  of  spelling  material  "Lesson  4"  or  "2'’  in  bold  face  type, 
or  "Review  Lesson"  or  "Supplementary  Words",  etc, 

2.  The  words  in  "Memory  Gems"  such  as  Excelsior  by  Longfellow,  Old  Ironsides, 

by  Holmes,  and  in  long  quotations  such  as  ten  lines  from  "Here  is  the  nation 
God  has  builded  by  our  hands.  What  shall  we  do  with  it!--- — " by  Woodrow 
Wilson  were  omitted.  In  such  cases  there  was  no  suggestion  that  the  mater- 
ial wa3  to  be  used  for  spelling  purposes. 

3«  Ayres  Spelling  Scale  when  printed  as  such  was  omitted.  In  these  cases  the 
scale  is  evidently  presented  for  purposes  of  reference  and  measurement. 

The  words  of  the  scale  are  presumably  presented  elsewhere  for  teaching  pur- 
poses, 

4.  The  following  were  omitted  when  copying  the  words  occurring  in  dictation 
exercises,  quotations,  letters,  etc.  (but  not  if  they  appeared  in  column 
words):  a,  an,  and,  are,  at,  be,  can,  day,  do,  go,  he,  in,  is,  it,  me,  my, 
of,  on,  she,  the,  up,  us,  we,  you. 

These  24  words  constitute  over  27  percent  of  the  total  running  words. 

They  offer  almost  no  difficulty  in  spelling  above  Grade  2 as  shown  by  the 
Ayres  Spelling  Scale  and  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scales, 

5.  Words  headed  Vo cabulary  were  omitted  because  words  thus  headed  are  intended 
undoubtedly  by  the  authors  as  a "finding  list"  to  indicate  what  words  are 
presented  in  the  grade  or  book  rather  than  for  lesson  purposes. 

Items  indicated  on  the  cards:— In  order  that  definite  and  extended  in- 
formation about  each  word  in  the  spellers  might  be  obtained,  a set  of  symbols  was 
devised  for  the  clerks  to  enter  on  the  cards  at  the  time  each  word  was  written. 
These  symbols  included  the  code  number  of  the  book  wherein  the  word  was  found, 
the  grade  for  which  it  was  offered  and  the  form  of  presentation  as  in  columns, 
in  dictation,  etc. 

In  the  upper  left-hand  corner  the  code  number  of  the  speller  was  writ” 
ten  in  Roman  numerals.  The  grade  for  which  the  word  was  intended  was  written  in 
Arabic  numerals  to  the  right  and  at  the  same  height  as  the  word.  The  letter  or 
letters  indicating  the  form  of  presentation  in  which  the  word  appears  was  written 
below  the  number  indicating  the  grade.  One  of  the  cards  is  reproduced  below. 


c 


l A* 


< 


< * f C ( < ( ( 


( t f t ( 


< 


i 


j 


i 1 1. 


_ r>o  „ 


I 

receive  6 

C 

3" 


No  difficulties  were  experienced  in  making  entries  for  the  book  and 
the  grade  in  which  the  word  was  found.  However,  this  was  not  the  case  in  making 
proper  entries  for  the  form  of  presentation.  For  some  words  it  was  a question 
of  judging  whether  they  should  be  classed  as  dictation  or  dictation  review;  for 
others,  whether  they  should  be  classed  as  word  analysis,  word  building,  or 
plural  formation;  etc.  Consequently,  we  are  assuming  the  risk  of  being  tedious 
in  the  explanations  of  the  categories  in  which  were  placed  the  different  forms 
of  presentation. 

In  the  first  place  we  found  that  it  would  require  an  extended  and 
complicated  set  of  symbols  to  indicate  all  the  forms  of  presentation  in  one 
book  and  that  the  series  would  have  to  be  much  more  extensive  and  complicated 
to  distinguish  between  all  the  different  forms  of  presentation  in  all  the  ten 
spellers  used  in  this  study.  Furthermore,  lack  of  use  by  the  authors  of  a com- 
mon terminology  in  designating  the  different  forms  of  presentation  made  the 
task  still  more  difficult.  Frequently  the  form  of  presentation  had  to  be  assum- 
ed from  a general  consideration  of  what  had  gone  before  and  what  followed  a 
given  group  of  words, 

After  a general  survey  of  the  forms  of  presentation  in  the  ten  spell- 
ers, it  was  decided  to  make  entries  as  follows: 


- 23  - 

a.  For  all  the  words  presented  in  column  form  and  clearly  for  none  of  the 
purposes  indicated  by  other  symbols,  the  clerks  were  to  enter  C/Column) 
on  the  cards. 

b.  For  all  words  in  column  form  clearly  indicated  for  review  purposes  by 
such  headings  as  "Review",  "Spelling  Match",  etc.,  the  clerks  were  to 
enter  CR( Column  Review)  on  the  cards. 

c.  For  all  words  in  column  form  that  were  clearly  indicated  as  additional 
words  to  give  the  children  if  more  work  was  needed  for  the  year  because 
the  preceding  regular  lessons  had  been  completed,  the  clerks  were  to 
enter  the  symbol  £ (Supplementary)  on  the  cards. 

d.  For  all  words  appearing  in  phrases,  quotations  and  sentences  construct- 
ed around  a given  group  of  words,  and  not  clearly  indicated  for  review 
purposes,  the  clerks  were  instructed  to  enter  I)  (Dictation)  on  the 
cards. 

9,  For  all  wordB  appearing  in  dictation  but  clearly  indicated  for  review 
purposes  by  usually  being  headed  "Dictation  Review",  the  clerks  were  to 
enter  DR  (Dictation  Review)  on  the  cards.  (Note--Signif icant  words  in 
dictation  (D)  and  in  dictation  review  (DR)  were  underlined  on  the  cards 
whenever  it  was  possible  to  determine  that  they  were  significant,  e.g. 
when  they  were  underlined,  or  put  in  columns  in  connection  with  dicta- 
tion in  the  same  lesson). 

f.  The  clerks  were  instructed  to  enter  on  the  cards  the  symbol  WB^  (Word 
Building)  for  all  words  that  are  clearly  indicated  to  be  for  the  pur- 
pose of  assisting  the  pupils  to  understand  and  spell  them  by  adding 
prefixes,  suffixes,  etc.  The  devices  used  in  the  textbooks  for  indicat- 
ing these  words  are  for  example:  placing  them  under  the  heading,  "Word- 
Building"  ; or  accompanying  them  by  statements  such  a3  "Abl e means 
worthy  or  able  to  be.  Add  able  to  each  of  the  following  words  and  note 
the  change  in  meaning.  Be  careful  to  make  no  mistake  in  spelling  the 
derivatives," 

g.  The  clerks  were  instructed  to  enter  on  the  cards  the  symbol  WA  (Word 
Analysis)  for  all  words  that  are  clearly  indicated  to  be  for  the  pur- 
pose of  assisting  the  pupils  to  grasp  their  meaning  by  separating  them 
into  roots,  prefixes,  etc.  The  devices  used  in  the  textbooks  for  in- 
dicating these  words  are  for  example:  placing  them  under  the  heading 
"Word  Analysis";  or  accompanying  them  by  statements  such  as,. "Ant  and 
ent  means  one  who;  that  which.  For  example,  resident  means  one  who 
resides.  Analyze  each  of  the  following  words  so  as  to  show  from  what 
verb  it  is  derived," 

h.  For  homonyms  grouped  together  in  columns  and  so  indicated  in  the  text 
by  the  device,  "Homophones  defined"  or  by  similar  devices,  the  clerks 
were  instructed  to  enter  on  the  cards  the  symbol  Cli  (Column  homonyms)  ; 
for  all  homonyms  appearing  together  in  dictation  and  clearly  indicated 
as  such  by  the  context  or  by  the  heading,  the  clerks  were  to  enter  on 
the  cards  the  symbol  DH  (Dictation  Homonyms);  and  for  such  words  sim- 
iliarly  indicated  and  with  the  additional  notation  that  they  are  for 
review  purposes  the  symbol  RF[  (Review  Homonyms)  was  used  regardless 

of  whether  in  column  or  dictation  form. 


- 24 


i.  The  clerks  were  instructed  to  enter  the  symbol  PF  (Plural  Formation) 

on  the  cards  for  words  clearly  indicated  to  be  for  the  purpose  of  teach- 
ing the  spelling  of  their  plural  forms.  The  devices  used  in  the  text- 
books for  indicating  these  words  are  for  example:  placing  them  under 
the  heading  "Plural  Formation";  or  accompanying  them  by  statements  such 
as,  "Following  the  rule,  add  es^  to  these  words,  and  use  the  new  forms 
in  written  sentences  of  your  own." 

j.  For  all  words  clearly  indicated  by  such  devices  as  the  heading  "Phonic 
Series",  or  by  groups  of  words  such  as  head,  bead,  rot , trot,  tie,  hie, 

lie,  etc,  the  clerks  were  instructed  to  enter  on  the  cards  the  symbol 
PH  (Phonics). 

Alphabetizing  and  making  master  cards. — V/hen  all  the  words  in  a spell- 
er had  been  written  on  cards,  they  were  arranged  in  strictly  alphabetical  order 
for  each  grade.  Thus  all  duplicates  were  automatically  brought  together.  For 
words  appearing  more  than  once  in  a particular  grade  for  a given  book,  all  the 
data  pertaining  to  the  word  were  transferred  to  one  of  the  cards  on  which  the 
word  already  appeared.  This  card  was  called  the  master  card.  A sample  of  a 
master  card  is  shown  below. 


master  card 


I 

2 

girl  1C 

2D 

' 

1DR 

This  master^  card  reads:  In  Book  I Grade  2 the  word  girl  appeared  once 
in  column  form,  twice  in  dictation  form  and  once  in  dictation  review  form. 

These  master  cards  were  left  in  the  filing  trays,  while  the  dupli- 
cates were  taken  out,  sorted  thru  once  to  find  any  master  cards  that  might  have 
been  placed  among  them  through  error,  and  then  discarded  as  far  as  this  project 
is  concerned. 

Eliminations: — » The  files  of  alphabetized  master  cards  were  gone 
through  and  eliminations  were  made  according  to  the  following  directions: 

— - — — -■  — - 


- 25  - 


1! 


different  forms  of  the  same  word  are  dif f eront  words  except  that 
the  simple  adding  of  £ to  a noun  or  verb  does  not  constitute  a different 
form.  If  a book  contains  two  forms  identical  except  that  one  has  an 
added  & and  the  other  has  not,  reject  the  form  in  s,  and  enter  its  data 
on  the  master  card  for  the  simple  form  without  s.  "if  a book  contains 
either  the  simple  form  alone  or  the  form  in  £ alone,  retain  the  word 
as  it  stands , . If  a book  contains  three' or  mTre  forms  of  the  same  word, 
one  of  which  is  the  simple  form  and  one  of  which  is  the  form  in  s,  re- 
ject the  form  in  s_  and  enter  its  data  on  the  master  card  for  the  simple 
form  without  s_.  If  it  contains  two  or  more  forms  none  of  which  is  in 
£,  retain  them  all. 

Exception;  Include  both  the  singular  and  plural  of  nouns  whose  sing- 
ular ends  in  £ preceded  by  a vowel,  cr  in  o if  a spelling  difficulty 
might  arise  when  the  plural  is  formed,  e.g.  chimney  and  chimneys;  solo 
and  solos.  1 1 

2.  Take  out  all  proper  names  except  days  of  the  week,  names  of  the  months, 
and  Christmas,  Easter,  Thanksgiving,  and  Hallowe'en, 

3»  Take  out  all  compound  words  both  parts  of  which  are  elsewhere  listed  in 
simple  forms  in  the  same  book  unless  a change  of  spelling  or  pronuncia- 
tion occurs  in  the  compound.  If  the  parts  are  not  listed  in  simple 
form,  separate  them  and  write  on  cards. 

4.  If  the  same  word  appears  two  or  more  times  and  one  of  the  appearances  is 
capitalized,  take  out  the  card  for  the  one  that  is  capitalized  and  enter 
its  data  on  the  master  card. 

5»  Retain  words  spelled  with  an  apostrophe. 

6.  Exclude  foreign  words  and  phrases. 

The  number  of  different  words  in  each  grade  was  determined  by  count- 
ing the  master  cards.  The  number  of  column  occurrences  was  found  by  counting 
all  the  on  the  master  cards;  the  number  of  dictation  occurrences  was  found 
by  counting  all  the  P's,  etc. 

Later  the  cards,  as  alphabetized  by  grades  in  a given  book,  were 
thrown  together  in  strictly  alphabetical  order  for  the  book  as  a whole,  and 
various  countings  were  made. 

Other  details  of  procedure  will  be  discussed  later  in  connection  with 


certain  tables. 


- 26  - 


I 

CHAPTER  III 
EXTENT  OF  THE  VOCABULARY 

One  of  the  important  problems  connected  with  spelling  texts  is  the  ex- 
tent or  size  of  the  vocabulary  to  be-  mastered  by  the  children.  It  indicates  the 
textbook  maker’s  idea  as  to  the  number  of  words  that  society  requires  to  be 
taught  to  children;  his  concept  as  to  the  ability  cf  the  pupils  to  master  a given 
number  of  words  during  their  school  career;  and  in  part  the  influence  that  mod- 
ern research  in  word  selection  has  had  upon  him  in  the  construction  of  his  spell- 
er. The  extent  of  the  vocabularies  found  in  the  texts  used  in  this  project  gives 
an  opportunity  to  compare  our  findings  with  those  of  ether  investigators  who 
have  covered  the  same  field. 

Extent  of  the  Vocabulary  in  Each  Book . 

In  our  analysis  of  spellers  a careful  count  of  the  different  words  in 
each  book  was  made  after  the  words  had  been  arranged  in  alphabetical  order  for 
the  bock  as  a whole.  By  this  method  no  word  was  counted  twice  or  mere  and  it  is 
possible  to  report  within  a reasonable  degree  of  accuracy  the  extent  of  the 
vocabulary  in  each  book.  Table  IX  shov.;s  the  number  of  different  words  in  each 
book . 


- 27 


TABLE  II 


NUMBER  OF  DIFFERENT  WORDS  IN  EACH  BOOK 


Book 

Number  of 
Dif  f erent 
words 

Book 

Number  of 
Di f f erent 
words 

! i 

3968 

VI 

5328 

ii 

5001 

VII 

4545 

hi 

478? 

VIII 

4767  j 

IV 

4742 

IX 

5915  j 

* V 

5911 

X 

4159 

1 

, 

1 

Table  reads:  In  Book  I there  are  3968 

different  words;  in  Book  II  there  are 
5C01  different  words;  etc. 


The  number  of  different  words  ranges  from  3968  in  Book  I to  5915  in 
Book  IX.  This  is  a wide  range  of  approximately  2,000  words  and  it  should  be 
stated  that  Book  I is  designed  for  Grades  2 to  8 inclusive  while  Book  IX  is  de- 
signed for  only  Grades  3 to  8 inclusive.  The  average  size  of  vocabulary  is  4900, 
the  median  3ize  is  approximately  4750,  and  the  modal  number  of  words  in  the 
vocabulary  of  a speller  is  approximately  4750.  These  data  indicate  that  the 
makers  of  the  spellers  are  at  variance  as  to  the  number  of  words  that  the  child 
needs  to  meet  the  demands  of  society  and  as  to  the  ability  of  the  pupils  to 
learn  efficiently  the  spelling  of  words. 

We  have  some  data  concerning  the  number  of  words  that  should  be  taught. 
Ayres^  on  the  basis  of  his  researches  "decided  to  limit  the  foundation  vocabu- 
lary to  1,0C0  words."  Anderson^  limited  his  vocabulary  to  3105  words,  The 
Teachers  College  List^  was  limited  to  two  thousand  words  beyond  the  Ayres  1,0CC 

1 Ayres,  L.P.  Measurement  of  ability  in  spelling,  p.9, 

2 

j..-h-e.  t fterrcination  of  a spelling  vocabulary  based  upon  written  correspondence. 
^Unpublished  doctor's  dissertation) University  of  Iowa,  1917. 

3 „ 

Sixteen  spelling  scales."  Teachers  Collc-e  Record.  September,  1920. 


- 28  - 

4 

word.  Jones  found  that  the  largest  vocabulary  of  the  eighth  grade  student  was 
2812  words.  Tidyman^  says:  "Thus  it  appears  that  a writing  vocabulary  of  4,000 
or  5,000  words  is  adequate  for  the  most  exacting  and  varied  demands  that  ere  likely 
to  be  made  upon  the  average  child,  and  that  the  thorough  teaching  of  3,000  to 
3,500  carefully  selected  v/ords  is  about  all  that  should  be  expected  of  the  ele- 
mentary' school,  provided  that  in  addition  the  child  is  taught  how  and  when  to  use 
the  dictionary Horn-  on  the  basis  of  compilations  made  from  eight  vocabulary 
studies  placed  the  limit  at  4C 52  and  said  that  they  "should  be  used  as  the  basis 
of  spelling  instruction  in  the  elementary  school  until  more  elaborate  investiga- 
tions are  made." 

Therefore  it  seems  that  a 4,000  v,rord  vocabulary  would  be  the  upper 
limit  and  a 3,000  word  vocabulary  the  lower  limit  on  the  basis  of  the  social  de- 
mand as  suggested  by  these  investigations.  If  this  suggestion  is  reasonable, 
only  two  of  the  texts  examined  by  us  approach  closely  the  standard.  These  two 
are  Books  I and  X,  and  they  lie  approximately  at  the  upper  limit  of  cur  suggested 
standard  size  of  vocabulary. 

As  a result  of  the  studies  of  the  memory  span  of  children  the  tendency 
in^recent  years  has  been  to  teach  a small  number  of  new  words  a day. • If  we 
assume  that  two  new  words  a day  are  taught  in  Grade  2 and  3,  three  new  words  a 
day  in  Grades  4 and  5 and  four  new  words  a day  in  Grades  6,  7 and  8,  and  that  the 
school  year  is  l80  days  we  shall  Have  taught  35&C  different  words  to  the  child 
who  completes  Grade  8.  These  data  based  on  the  assumed  ability  of  the  pupil  to 
learn  new  words  bring  us  to  practically  the  same  conclusion  as  did  the  considera- 

4 

Concrete  investigation  of  the  material  of  English  spelling. 

5 

The  teachir.  ; of  spelling,  p.  °. 

6 

The  principles  of  method  in  spelling  as  derived  from  scientific  investigation. 
The  Eighteenth  Yearbook  of  the  National  Society  for  the  Study  of  Education, 

Pt.  II,  p.  57. 
n-  Horr,E:  Ibid , p.  58. 


- 29  - 


tions  based  on  the  danands  of  society,  that  is,  that  4,0C0  words  set  the  upper 
limit  to  the  extent  of  the  vocabulary . Therefore,  from  the  sociological  basis 
and  from  the  psychological  basis,  we  conclude  that  Books  I and  X most  nearly  con- 
form to  the  proper  size  of  the  vocabulary.  The  other  books  on  our  list  of  ten 
have  vocabularies  larger  than  4,5C0  words.  We  conclude,  on  the  basis  of  the 
hypothesis  that  4,0C0  words  is  the  upper  limit,  that  they  are  attempting  to  teach 
too  many  words. 

It  is  possible  to  compare  the  size  of  the  vocabularies  in  cur  ten  spell- 

O 

ers  with  the  size  of  the  vocabularies  in  a few  other  spellers.  Cook  and  O'Shea"' 
found  that  their  Speller  A had  a vocabulary  of  2,521  words,  Speller  B had  a voc- 
abulary of  11,132  words,  and  Speller  C had  a vocabulary  of  5*928  words.  The 
vocabulary  for  Speller  A was  smaller  than  the  vocabulary  for  any  of  our  ten  spell- 
ers, the  vocabulary  for  Speller  C was  practically  the  same  size  as  the  vocabular- 
ies in  our  Books  V and  IX,  while  their  Speller  B had  a vocabulary  about  twice  as 
large  as  either  of  our  two  largest— Books  V and  IX. 

However,  the  data  derived  by  Cook  and  O'Shea'  are  not  strictly  compar- 
able with  our  data,  because  of  a difference  in  the  methods  of  selecting  the 
vocabularies.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  Cook  and  O'Shea  are  not  consistent 
v/ith  themselves.  Their  Speller  A contained  only  column  words,  hence  no  problem 
in  selection  presented  itself.  But  in  their  speller  B only  column  words  were 
used  regardless  of  the  fact  that  half  the  significant  words  we re  presented  not 
only  in  column  but  also  in  adjacent  sentences.  In  their  Speller  C,  however, 
which  contained  a large  number  of  dictation  and  completion  exercises,  "everything 
save  directions  to  pupils"  was  used.  In  our  investigation,  however,  we  used  all 
the  different  words  whether  or  not  they  wrere  in  column  or  dictation  form  of  pre- 
sentation. If  their  spellers  were  representative  of  those  in  current  use  in  1913 


8 Cook,  W.A.  and  O'Shea,  M.V. 

9 Ibid^,  pp.  148-9 


The  child  and  his  spelling,  p . 22 5* 


- 30  - 


and  1914,  and  their  data  comparable  with  ours,  and  if  our  ten  are  representative 
of  the  present  practice,  then  it  follows  that  there  was  more  variation  in  the 
size  of  the  vocabularies  among  the  spellers  at  that  time  than  exists  now. 

The  investigations  made  by  Woody10  were  more  recent  than  those  of  Cook 
and  O'Shea.  His  results  are  as  follows: 

TABLE  III 

NUMBER  OF  DIFFERENT  WORDS  IN  EACH  BOOK  ( WOODY) 


n”- 

Sp  ellers 

Grades 

Total  words 
in  Book 

Champion 

3-8 

5*872 

Peirce 

3-8 

2,862 

Merrill 

3-8 

5,550 

Aldine 

1-8 

4,436- 

Aldine 

3-8 

3 » 4C0 

Jones 

2-3 

4,532  / j 

While  these  data  do  not  show  as  wide  range  in  the  size  of  vocabulary 
as  did  the  spellers  examined  by  Cook  and  O'Shea,  there  is  nevertheless  a wide 

range  from  2,362  to  5*872.  That  is,  the  largest  book  has  twice  as  many  words  as 

the  smallest  book.  This  range  is  wider  than  ours  which  as  has  been  said  is  from 
3i968  to  5i915.  However,  Woody's  data  and  curs  may  not  be  strictly  comparable 
because  the  sources  of  the  words  may  not  be  exactly  the  same.  We  used  all  the 

different  words  whether  in  column  or  in  dictation  form,  while  we  are  not  able  to 

determine  from  his  description  of  the  sources  of  his  words  whether  or  not  he  did 
the  same. 

One  of  the  books  examined  by  Woody  and  one  of  our  ten  is  the  same  book^. 

the  Aldine.  We  found  4,545  different  words  for  Grades  2 to  8 while  Woody  es- 
timated the  number  for  Grades  1 to  8 to  be  4,436  and  for  Grades  3 to  8 to  be 
3 * 4C0.  It  would  be  difficult  to  determine  on  the  basis  of  Woody's  data  what  the 

Woody, C.  Application  of  scientific  method  in  evaluating  the  subject  matter 
of  spellers."  Journal  of  Educational  Research.  1:119-128,  February,  1920. 


- 31 


number  of  different  words  for  Grades  2 to  8 inclusive  would  be,  but  we  assume 
that  it  would  be  between  3>4C0  and  4,436  words,  which  would  be  appreciably  less 
than  the  4,5^5  different  words  that  we  found  for  Grades  2 to  8. 

This  discrepancy  may  be  due  to  slightly  different  sources  for  the  words. 
We  used  the  words  found  in  both  column  and  dictation  forms  of  presentation,  while 
Woody  may  have  used  the  words  found  in  column  only.  However,  from  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  sources  of  his  speller  words,  we  are  not  able  to  determine  whether  or 
not  he  used  dictation  material.  If  he  did  not,  then  this  is  perhaps  the  explana- 
tion of  the  discrepancy. 

Extent  of^  the  Vocabulary  in  Each  Grade 

An  examination  of  the  extent  of  the  vocabulary  or  the  number  of  differ- 
ent words  in  a grade  reveals  (1)  the  teaching  and  learning  load  that  confront 
the  teacher  and  the  pupils;  and  the  extent  to  which  the  authors  have  used  a 

common  standard  for  the  number  of  different  words  that  should  be  taught  and  re- 
viewed in  each  grade. 

The  reader  may  be  misled  if  he  does  not  note  carefully  that  we  used 
the  term  "taught  and  reviewed"  which  applies  to  words  in  all  the  grades  except 
Grade  2 in  the  spellers  having  Grades  2 to  3 and  to  words  in  all  grades  except 

Grade  3 in  the  spellers  having  Grades  3 to  8.  A determination  of  the  number  of 

words  to  be  "taught"— i. e. , the  number  of  new  words— for  al]  the  grades  of  ten 
spellers  would  have  entailed  a very  large  additional  outlay  in  time  and  money. 

The  problem,  however,  is  straight  forward  and  requires  only  clerical  service  nec- 
essary to  derive  the  data.  No  doubt  some  investigator  will  undertake  the  task. 

Ne  suggest  that  makers  of  spellers  use  some  common  device  to  indicate 

in  each  grade  the  words  that  are  presented  there  for  the  first  time  in  the  book. 

The  word  might,  for  example,  be  underlined  or  printed  in  bold  face. 

With  the  preceding  cautions  and  limitations  in  mind  we  present  the 
number  of  different  words  in  each  grade  in  Table  IV. 


c 


, 


. 


' • 


V V 1 J 


. . X, 


. ‘ . .. 


e • C 


. 


. i . 1 


'i, 


> i.  ' • : 


* ' - 


u» 


. . X . *t  ' 


32  - 


TABLE  IV 

NUMBER  OF  DIFFERENT  WORDS  IN  EACH  GRADE 


Grade 

Book 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

377 

701 

370 

420 

(a) 

(a) 

576 

569 

(a) 

419 

3 

589 

866 

750 

930 

951 

1024 

822 

1092 

1030 

662 

4 

868 

950 

1307 

1229 

1235 

1392 

993 

1379 

1166 

762 

5 

965 

926 

1459 

1256 

1589 

131? 

1117 

1415 

1100 

751 

6 

1032 

1057 

1508 

1294 

1864 

1236 

1142 

1483 

1367 

766 

7 

794 

1139 

659 

858 

I960 

1367 

1161 

1582 

1723 

718 

8 

1240 

1413 

1345 

1067 

1950 

1395 

843 

1599 

1914 

1143 

( a.) 

'These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  there  are  377  different  words;  in  Book 

II  there  are  701  different  words;  etc. 


I 

- 33  - 

It  will  be  interesting  to  note  the  range  of  the  number  of  different 
words  in  each  grade  through  the  different  books.  In  Grade  2 the  range  is  from 
37C  to  7 Cl  different  words;  in  Grade  3 from  589  to  1092 ; in  Grade  4 from  f62  to 
1392;  in  Grade  5 from  751  to  1589;  in  Grade  6 from  766  to  1864;  in  Grade  7 from 
659  to  I96O;  and  in  Grade  8 from  843  to  1950*  Some  books  have  twice  as  many- 
different  words  for  a given  grade  as  other  books  and  for  some  grades  one  book  has 
three  times  as  many  words  as  another  book. 

In  general  there  is  an  increase  in  the  number  of  different  words  in 
advancing  grades.  However,  there  is  shown  by  the  table  two  or  three  exceptions 
that  should  be  noted.  .The  number  of  words  decreases  in  Grade  7 Book  I and  no 
explanation  is  found.  For  Grade  7 Book  III  it  should  be  noted  that  long  quota- 
tions given  in  the  book  were  not  copied  on  cards  in  the  original  work,  hence  it 
is  to  be  expected  that  the  number  of  different  words  would  decrease.  This  also 
accounts  for  the  relatively  small  number  of  different  words  in  Grade  8 of  this 
book. 

A series  of  straightf orward  calculations  made  on  the  data  in  the  table 
will  reveal  the  range  in  the  number  of  different  words  a day  that  the  child  would 
meet  if  we  allow  180  days  for  the  school  year.  In  Grade  2 the  range  would  be 

from  2 different  words  a day  in  certain  books  to  4 different  words  a day  in  other 

books;  in  Grade  3 from  3 to  6 different  words  a day;  in  Grade  4 from  4 to  8 
words;  in  Grade  5 from  4 to  9 words;  in  Grade  6 from  4 to  10  words;  in  Grade  7 
from  4 to  11  words;  and  in  Grade  8 from  5 to  11  words.  In  Grades  2,  3»  4,  5» 
and  8 one  book  has  twice  as  many  different  words  a day  as  another  book.  In 
Grade  7 one  book  has  three  times  as  many  different  words  as  another  book  and  in 

Grade  6 one  book  has  two  and  a half  times  as  many  words  as  another  book. 

Figure  x shows  the  variation  in  the  number  of  different  words  in 
Grades  2 to  8 of  typical  spellers. 


- 34  - 


/>? 


76 


77 


/e 


75 


74 


rl 


77 

1 


7 


6 


4 


f/yore  / 

A/v/Tider  of  f)7ffere/7f/4frrz/s  6y 
Grades  7/7  7yp/oa/  Spe//efs 


/ 


Grade 

4 ...  1 


7 


-35- 


Hera  we  see  wide  diversity  of  opinion  concerning  the  number  of  differ- 
ent words  in  a given  grade.  One  speller  has,  for  example,  843  different  words 
in  Grade  7 and  another  speller  has  i960.  Surely  such  wide  diversity  of  practice 
can  not  be  justified  on  the  basis  of  experimental  data.  This  suggests  the  ur- 
gent need  for  research  work  to  determine  the  optimum  number  of  different  words 
that  children  of  a given  grade  can  learn  to  a reasonable  degree  of  efficiency, 
and  the  number  of  review  words  that  should  be  presented. 


- 

< 


, 


. 


: 


- 36  - 


CHAPTER  IV 


SELECTION  OF  VOCABULARY 


One  of  the  most  popular  subjects  now  before  school  people  and  research 


workers  in  education  is  curriculum  construction.  Elaborate  methods  and  extended 
formulas  have  been  used  widely  in  the  search  for  scientific  methods  of  curricu- 


in  curriculum  construction  is  found  in  the  efforts  of  research  workers  to  deter- 
mine the  words  that  should  constitute  the  spelling  vocabulary  to  be  taught  to 
the  elementary  school  children. 

One  of  the  moot  questions  is:  What  should  be  the  source  material  from 

which  to  select  the  vocabulary  to  meet  the  needs  of  society?  Knowles  used  the 
Bible  and  certain  literary  selections  and  formed  his  list  from  the  basis  of  the 
most  frequently  occurring  words.  Eldridge  used  newspaper  articles  and  selected 
6000  of  the  most  frequently  occurring  words.  Cook  and  O’Shea  based  their  words 
on  frequency  in  adult  correspondence.  Ayres  selected  his  vocabulary  on  the 
basis  of  frequency,  in  part  from  adult  correspondence  and  in  part  from  a synthe- 
sis of  the  three  preceding  lists.  Anderson  derived  his  list  on  the  basis  of 
frequency  in  adult  correspondence.  The  Teachers  College  students  derived  their 
words  from  a synthesis  of  the  Eldridge  and  the  Cook  and  O'Shea  lists  excluding 
the  Ayres  list  of  "thousand  commonest  words,"  Jones’s  "demons"  and  certain  other 
words.  Consequently,  the  frequency  of  use  in  adult  correspondence  and  in  news- 
papers was  the  basis  for  the  Teachers  College  lists.  Jones  obtained  his 

^The”  Fourteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Yearbooks  of  the  National  Society 
for  the  Study  of  Education,  Part  I,  (Public  School  Publishing  Company,  Bloom- 
ington, Illinois)  and 

Charters,  W.  W.  "What  has  thus  far  been  accomplished  and  is  now  available  for 
the  readjustment  of  school  curricula."  proceedings  of  the  High-School  Confer- 
ence , 1918,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  Illinois. 


lum  construction 


1 


An  excellent  illustration  of  the  use  of  scientific  methods 


- 37  - 


vocabulary  from  the  frequency  of  use  in  the  themes  of  school  children;  Woolfolk 
obtained  his  from  the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  errors  in  the  written  work  of 
elementary  school  children.  All  of  these  investigations  gave  lists  of  words  as 
found  in  their  natural  setting,  i.  e.,  in  sentence  formation* 

The  sources  may  be  grouped  as  follows:  frequency  in  adult  use — corre- 
spondence, newspapers  and  literature;  frequency  in  children’s  correspondence — 
themes  and  spontaneous  compositions;  and  frequency  of  error  in  children’s  writ- 
ten work.  It  seems  clear  that  none  of  these  sources  taken  exclusively  as  a 
basis  for  word  selection  is  the  best.  What  is  needed  is  a synthetic  vocabulary 
selected  on  the  basis  of  frequency  of  occurrence  in  children's  written  work  which 
gives  the  words  the  children  need  to  spell  in  their  present  social  activities; 
then,  to  avoid  teaching  words  that  are  already  learned  incidentally,  the  frequen- 
cy of  error  should  be  considered;  and,  in  order  to  provide  for  enlargement  of 
vocabulary,  the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  words  used  in  adult  correspondence 
should  likewise  be  considered. 

For  purposes  of  evaluating  the  selection  of  the  vocabularies  in  spell- 
ers one  should  know  the  words  the  children  need  to  spell  and  also  the  frequency 
and  the  difficulty  of  these  same  words.  Such  an  ideal  list  with  the  sources  we 
have  indicated  does  not  exist  at  present.  In  the  absence  of  such,  we  decided 
to  use  a synthesis  of  the  Ayres  "thousand  commonest  words"  and  the  Teachers  Col- 
lege "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words"  as  our  measure  of 
the  selection  of  the  vocabulary  of  spelling  books.  This  was  done  for  expediency 
and  because  all  of  the  spellers  indicated  in  their  prefaces  that  in  the  selection 
of  their  vocabularies  use  had  been  made  of  many  of  the  scientific  investigations 
of  spelling  including  especially  Ayres's,  Eldridge's,  and  Cook  and  O’Shea's — 
the  last  two  being  the  basis  of  the  Teachers  College  list. 

Selection  o_f  Vo eabulary  by  Books 

The  extent  to  which  use  was  made  of  the  Ayres  and  the  Teachers  College 


J 


- 38  - 


lists  is  shown  in  part  in  Table  V. 

Book  I has  994  of  the  Ayres  "thousand  commonest  words"  which  is  the 
largest  number  contained  in  any  of  the  books.  Book  II  has  808  of  the  same  list 
and  this  is  the  least  number  found  in  any  of  the  spellers.  As  far  as  the  Ayres 
so-called  "thousand  commonest  words"  are  a reliable  measure  of  the  demands  of 
society  upon  the  teaching  of  spelling  in  the  elementary  schools,  we  may  say  that 
on  the  whole  the  texts  have  met  the  demand  exceedingly  well.  This  is  especially 
true  of  Books  I,  VII,  and  VIII.  It  is  justifiable  to  omit  from  the  speller  from 
twenty  to  twenty-five  of  the  words  of  the  Ayres  list  because  they  offer  compara- 
tively no  spelling  difficulty  to  the  children  even  in  the  first  two  grades  (that 
is,  Grades  2 and  3)  for  which  we  have  data  on  the  difficulty  of  words.  There  is 
another  possibility  that  the  spellers  would  reveal  no  more  than  976  words  because 
we  excluded  from  our  study,  when  the  words  we re  being  written  on  the  cards, 
twenty-four  of  the  easiest  words  in  the  Ayres  list  unless  these  words  were  found 
in  columns.  (For  a list  of  the  excluded  words  the  reader  should  refer  to  Chap- 
ter II.) 

On  the  basis  of  the  Teachers  College  words,  the  texts  do  not  make  such 
a favorable  showing.  Of  course,  we  are  assuming  that  this  list  of  words  is  what 
it  purports  to  be,  that  is,  the  second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used 
words  in  newspapers  and  adult  correspondence.  The  range  in  the  number  of  these 
words  is  from  1019  in  Book  II  to  1323  in  Book  VIII.  All  things  considered,  it 
is  remarkable  that  the  range  is  so  narrow  for  the  ten  books.  As  one  glances 
down  the  column  showing  the  number  of  Teachers  College  words  in  each  text,  he 
cannot  fail  to  observe  the  similarity  in  the  numbers  of  these  words  common  to 
the  spellers.  He  will  note,  for  example,  that  all  the  books  have  more  than  one- 
half  of  the  2000  words  of  this  list  and  that  none  of  them  has  two-thirds  of  these 
words. 

Column  5 of  the  table  shows  the  percent  of  the  different  words  in  each 


39 


TABLE  V 

EXTENT  TO  WHICH  THE  WORDS  OF  THE  AYRES- TEACHERS  COLLEGE  LIST 
ARE  FOUND  IN  THE  TEXTBOOKS 


Book 

Number  of 
different 
words 

Number  of 
Ayres 
word  8 

Number  of 
Teachers 
College 
words 

Number  of 

Ayres- 

Teachers 

College 

words 

Percent  of 
words  in 
book  that 
are  Ayres- 
Teachers 
College 
wordsa 

Percent  of 

Ayres- 

Teachers 

College 

words  in 

bookb 

I 

3968 

994 

1052 

2046 

51.5 

68.2 

II 

5001 

808 

1019 

1827 

36.5 

60.9 

III 

4787 

957 

1C88 

2045 

42.7 

68.2 

IV 

4742 

954 

1257 

2211 

46.7 

73.7 

V 

5911 

861 

1181 

2062 

34.9 

68.7 

VI 

5328 

917 

1103 

2020 

37.9 

67.3 

VII 

4545 

976 

1187 

2163 

47.7 

72.1 

VIII 

4767 

983 

1323 

2306 

46.4 

76.9 

IX 

5915 

944 

1272 

2216 

37.5 

73.8 

X 

4159 

916 

1303 

2119 

50.9 

70.6 

Entries  in  Column  4 divided  by  entries  in  Column  3 . 
b 

Entries  in  Column  4 divided  by  3000. 


Table  reads:  In  Book  I there  are  3968  different  words  consisting  in 

part  of  994  Ayres  thousand  words  and  1052  Teachers  College  words, 
these  totaling  2046  words;  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  form 
51.5  percent  of  all  the  different  words;  and  68.2  percent  of  the 
Ayres-Teachers  College  words  are  common  to  the  text;  etc. 


V 


- 40  - 


book  that  are  Ayres-Teachers  College  words.  The  range  is  from  34.9  percent  for 

Book  V to  51*5  percent  for  Book  I,  and  the  median  percent  for  the  ten  books  is 

42.?.  Assuming  that  the  3000  words  of  our  synthetic  list  are  the  words  that 

should  be  taught  first,  no  matter  what  others  are  taught,  it  follows  that  48.5 

percent  to  65*1  percent  of  the  words  now  taught  are  of  the  kind  that  should  be 

presented  only  after  the  3000  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  have  been  attended  to. 

In  other  words,  from  48.5  to  65. 1 percent  (almost  l/2  to  2/3)  of  the  pupils'  time 

is  devoted  to  a relatively  less  important  content.  It  seems  clear  that  something 

more  than  l/3  to  l/2  of  the  time  ought  to  be  spent  in  learning  a list  which  is 

fundamental  from  almost  any  point  of  view.  Since  there  are  indications  that  the 

vocabulary  for  a speller  may  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  4000  words,  it  is  clear 

that  devoting  anything  like  l/2  to  2/3  of  the  time  of  the  pupils  to  words  outside 

of  a fundamental  list  of  3000  is  a faulty  arrangement.  If  we  were  100  percent 

efficient  in  teaching  the  words  in  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list,  it  might  not 

be  so  serious,  but  we  know  from  results  of  measuring  the  children's  performances 

in  spelling  that  the  teaching  of  these  words  falls  far  short  of  perfection. 

Our  data  on  the  percent  of  the  words  in  the  spellers  that  are  Ayres- 

Teachers  College  words  make  a better  showing  for  the  spelling  texts  in  regard 

to  their  presenting  the  "most  commonly  used  words"  than  do  similar  data  published 

by  Woody.  He  found  for  the  "percent  of  words  in  book  that  are  in  the  Anderson 

list"  the  following:  Champion  speller  22 - 7 ; Peirce  speller  26.2;  Merrill  speller 

o 

30;  Aldine  speller  41.5;  and  the  Jones  speller  41. 8.  ^ 

He  concludes  thus:  "In  cold  facts  these  figures  mean,  if  we  may  safely 

argue  from  the  basis  of  the  Anderson  list,  that  from  58  to  77  percent  of  the  time 

devoted  to  spelling  within  the  public  school  is  spent  upon  words  not  commonly 
3 

used."  Our  corresponding  figures  are  48-5  and  65. 1 percent.  That  is,  our  data 

2 ; — — - - 

Woody,  C.  "Application  of  scientific  method  in  evaluating  the  subject  matter 

of  spellers,"  Journal  of  Educational  Research,  1:121,  February,  1920. 

3Woody,  Ibid.  p.  128. 

— 1 


41 


are  more  favorable  to  the  selection  of  words  found  in  spellers.  However,  the 
figures  obtained  by  us  and  by  Woody  may  not  be  closely  comparable.  In  the  first 
place,  we  do  not  know  what  our  results  would  have  been  if  we  had  used  the  Ander- 
son list,  although  we  do  know  that  the  two  lists  purport  to  be  the  same  thing, 
namely,  the  3000  most  frequently  used  words  in  adult  writing.  In  the  second 
place,  we  know  nothing  as  to  the  basis  used  by  Woody  in  selecting  the  words  in 
his  spellers.  As  mentioned  before,  he  may  have  confined  his  attention  to  words 
printed  in  columns,  but  he  does  not  describe  his  method  accurately  enough  for  us 
to  determine. 

Cook  and  O'Shea4  found  that  "If  the  lists  of  the  spelling  books  be 
tested  by  the  lists  secured  from  the  correspondents,  it  develops  that  four  thou- 
sand, three  hundred  fifty-one  different  words,  or  only  thirty  five  per  cent,  of 
the  total,  ever  appeared  in  the  letters."  While  their  data  were  derived  by  a 
different  method  of  calculation,  their  measuring  list,  like  ours,  was  obtained 
from  adult  writing  and  in  fact,  it  composed  a part  of  our  measuring  list.  Their 
result,  however,  approaches  the  results  that  we  found. 

If  the  hypothesis  holds,  that  the  elementary  schools  should  meet  the 
demands  of  society  in  regard  to  the  words  to  be  taught  to  the  children,  and  if 
the  demands  of  society  are  interpreted  correctly  by  the  so-called  "most  frequent- 
ly usea  words”  derived  by  the  different  investigators,  then  it  may  be  concluded 
from  the  sets  of  data  presented  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  that  the  spellers 
examined  so  far  are  not  measuring  up  to  what  is  expected  of  them. 

Another  view  of  the  way  the  spellers  are  meeting  the  social  demands 
may  be  obtained  by  studying  Column  6 in  Table  V.  This  column  shows  the  percent 
of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  that  are  found  in  the  different  spellers. 

The  range  is  from  60.9  percent  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  found  in  Book 
II  to  76.9  percent  found  in  Book  VIII.  In  spite  of  this  range  of  16  percent  one 

4Cook  and  O'Shea.  The  child  and  his  spelling,  p.  226. 


<•- 


\ • 


- 42  - 

feels  that  the  books  are  not  strikingly  different  in  this  matter  and  that  on  the 
whole  the  percent  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  included  in  the  spellers  is 
rather  higher  than  might  be  expected.  However,  if  the  Ayres-Teachers  College 
list  is  what  it  is  purported  to  be,  the  three  thousand  most  frequently  used 
words,  it  should  be  found  approximately  100  percent,  or  entire,  in  any  speller 
which  offers  more  than  3000  words. 

Our  data  again  are  more  favorable  to  the  spellers  in  general  than  are 
the  data  derived  by  Woody  on  the  basis  of  the  Anderson  "three  thousand  most  fre- 
quently used  words."  He  showed  the  percent  of  the  Anderson  list  included  in 
spellers  as  follows:  Champion  speller  45*9;  Peirce  speller  25.2;  Merrill  Bpeller 

54.0;  Aldine  speller  63.9;  and  Jones  speller  6l.3."  It  will  be  noted  that  the 
range  obtained  by  us  for  our  list  of  "three  thousand  most  frequently  used  words" 
is  from  60.9  percent  to  76.9  percent  while  the  range  found  by  V/oody  is  from  25.2 
to  63. 9 • Our  limits  on  the  whole  are  much  higher  than  his. 

The  data  obtained  by  us,  as  mentioned  before  in  this  section,  are  not 
strictly  comparable  with  those  obtained  by  Woody.  We  considered  the  words  in  all 
forms  of  presentation — column,  column  review,  dictation,  dictation  review,  etc. 
While  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that  Woody  considered  only  the  column  form  of 
presentation,  he  does  not  make  this  point  clear.  If  we  are  correct  in  assuming 
that  he  used  column  words  only,  then  we  are  safe  in  the  statement  that  he  did 
not  find  all  the  different  words.  This  statement  is  based  on  the  fact  that  when 
we  found  the  words  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  and  to  the  column 
and  significant  dictation  (underlined,  printed  in  columns  in  the  same  lesson, 
etc.)  words  in  the  spellers,  we  secured  an  appreciably  smaller  number  than  when 
we  considered  the  words  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  and  to  all 
forms  of  presentation  in  the  spellers.  Therefore,  we  conclude  that  Woody's  meth- 
od of  selection  if,  as  is  apparently  the  case,  it  was  based  on  column  words  alone, 

^Woody , Ibid.  p.  121 


- 43  - 


failed  to  find  all  the  words  and  consequently  that  our  method  is  better. 

However,  regaraless  of  the  fact  that  in  many  ways  our  data  and  his  are 
not  strictly  comparable,  nevertheless  they  indicate  the  same  general  conclusion, 
namely,  that  the  spellers  are  not  teaching  the  words  that  modern  research  in  the 
selection  of  the  spelling  vocabulary  indicates  should  be  taught. 

One  of  the  practical  outcomes  of  the  preceding  table  and  discussion 
is  the  possibility  of  ranking  the  spellers.  The  schoolman  in  service  is  more 
interested  perhaps  in  the  rank  of  each  book  than  he  is  in  the  exact  numbers  and 
percents  for  any  given  phase  of  the  spellers. 

,/e  have  chosen  to  rank  the  spellers  on  three  bases — the  percent  of 
words  in  each  book  that  are  Ayres-Teachers  College  words,  the  percent  of  the 
Ayres-Teachers  College  words  that  are  found  in  each  book,  and  a combination  of 

these  two  sets  of  data.  The  rank  of  each  speller  in  each  category  is  shown  in 
Table  VI. 


TABLE  VI 

RANK  OF  SPELLERS  ON  PERCENT  OF  AYRES-TEACHERS  COLLEGE 
VORDS  CONTAINED  IN  THEIR  VOCABULARIES 


Book 

(a) 

Rank'  ' on  per- 
cent of  Ayres- 
Teachers  College 
words 

( a’i 

Rank'  ' on  per- 
cent of  words  in 
book  that  are 
Ayres-Teachers 
College  words 

Combined 

Rank 

I 

7-5 

1 

5 

II 

10 

9 

10 

III 

7-5 

6 

6 

IV 

3 

5 

3.5 

V 

6 

10 

8.5 

VI 

9 

7 

8.5 

VII 

4 

4 

3.5 

VIII 

1 v' 

3 

1 

IX 

2 - 

8 

6 

* -1 

5 v 

2 

2 

a^Rank  1 means  highest,  rank  2 next  highest,  etc. 


iabl.e  reads;  Book  I ranks  7*5  on  the  percent  of  the  Ayres- 
Teachers  College  words  that  are  found  in  its  vocabulary, 
ranks  1 on  the  percent  of  the  words  in  its  vocabulary  that 
are  found  in  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list,  and  on  the 
combination  of  the  two  percents  it  ranks  5;  etc. 


- 44  - 

I"t  will  b©  noted  that  of  the  two  books  which  mak©  the  best  showing 
Book  VIII  has  a high  ranking  in  both  items  and  Book  X ranks  only  fairly  high  on 
one  of  the  items.  Again,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  books  that  rank  low  do  so 
consistently.  This  regularity  of  ranking  might  suggest  to  the  reader  that  the 
measures  are  dealing  with  a constant  function  in  the  spellers.  However,  that 
these  functions  are  independent  may  be  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  size  of  the 
vocabulary  has  practically  no  correlation  with  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  Col- 
lege words  found  in  the  books.  The  value  of  r_  derived  by  using  the  rank-differ- 
ence method,  is  -0.09. 

Selection  o f Vo cabulary  by  Grade s 

The  preceding  study  of  the  selection  of  the  speller  vocabularies  by 
books  gave  a general  picture  of  them  as  a whole,  but  we  need  to  go  farther  and 
to  examine  by  grades  in  each  book  the  selection  of  the  vocabulary.  With  our 
graded  system  of  schools  today,  the  grade  is  in  reality  the  teaching  unit  rather 
ti.an  the  whole  series  of  grades.  In  fact,  many  textbooks  in  other  fields,  as 
well  as  in  spelling,  are  not  published  as  single  volumes  but  as  series  of  volumes 
witn  material  for  one  or  two  grades  in  each  book.  Often  we  find  that  a school 
system  has  a given  textbook  for  certain  of  the  grades  and  another  textbook  for 
certain  of  the  other  grades.  Presumably,  this  is  because  the  school  authorities 
believe  that  one  book  is  especially  strong  in  certain  features  for  a particular 
grade  or  grades  and  that  another  book  is  better  suited  to  the  other  grades. 

Therefore,  it  is  well  to  study  the  texts  in  spelling  by  grades.  We 
can  determine  what  use  is  made  of  the  "most  frequently  used  words"  in  each  grade 
in  each  book,  how  the  authors  vary  in  the  use  of  these  words,  what  the  general 
tendency  among  these  practices  is,  and  where  the  teaching  and  learning  loads  are 
as  far  as  the  "most  frequently  used  words"  are  concerned. 

In  each  grade  in  each  book  the  number  of  Ayres  "thousand  commonest 
words,"  the  number  of  Teachers  College  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently 


; 


" , ■ . • 


.. 


- 45  - 


vised  words,”  and  by  adding  the  two  preceding,  the  number  of  Ayres-Teacher s Col- 
lege words  was  determined.  It  should  be  noted  that  ’’number"  refers  to  the  dif- 
ferent words  and  not  to  the  different  words  plus  the  repetitions  of  these  words 
in  the  grade.  Further,  it  should  be  noted  that  the  number  of  different  words  in 
^ Si ven  giade  does  not  mean  that  these  words  did  not  appear  in  another  grade, 
since  a given  word  was  often  found  in  two  or  more  grades — as  will  be  shown  in 
Chapter  VI. 

With  these  statements  and  definitions  in  mind  the  reader’s  attention 
is  called  to  Table  VII  which  shows  the  number  of  Ayres-Teacher s College  words 
per  grade. 

From  Table  VII  we  observe  that  the  ranges  between  the  spellers  offer- 
ing the  least  number  of  different  Ayres-Teacher s College  words  per  grade  and  the 
spellers  offering  the  largest  number  of  such  words  per  grade  are; 


Grade 

Range  in 
number 
of  words 

Grade 

Range  in 
number 
of  words 

2 

174 

5 

476 

3 

403 

6 

542 

4 

526 

7 

6l8 

8 

499 

These  figures  show  a wide  variation  in  the  number  of  Ayres-Teacher s 
College  words  found  in  a given  grade  in  the  spellers.  This  is  especially  true 
when  we  consider  that  the  average  number  of  such  words  per  grade  does  not  exceed 
600. 

Since  we  have  little,  if  any,  experimental  data  on  the  number  of  new 
words  that  should  be  taught  in  a given  grade  and  at  the  same  time  the  number  of 
words  that  should  be  reviewed,  we  may  approach  the  problem  from  the  angle  of 
current  practice.  On  the  supposition  that  our  ten  spellers  represent  the  best 
practice  at  the  present  v/e  can  find  the  average  of  the  ten  for  each  grade. 


% 


- 


■ 

- 46  - 


TABLE  VII 

NUMBER  OF  AYRES-TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS  PER  GRADE 


Grade 

Book 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

319 

493 

333 

391 

(a) 

(a) 

395 

404 

(a) 

370 

3 

475 

524 

577 

838 

738 

834 

530 

733 

571 

435 

4 

608 

525 

792 

965 

629 

703 

626 

815 

565 

439 

5 

780 

447 

847 

893 

823 

625 

680 

807 

685 

417 

6 

658 

464 

917 

838 

818 

478 

645 

768 

619 

375 

7 

442 

422 

224 

435 

842 

457 

633 

816 

682 

339 

8 

368 

432 

424 

423 

748 

449 

281 

780 

604 

559 

( a1) 

' ' These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 


Table  reads;  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  there  are  319  different  Ayres- 
Teachers  College  words;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I,  there  are  475 
different  Ayres-Teachers  College  words;  etc. 


- 47  - 


However,  this  current  practice  succeeded  in  teaching  only  about  2000  of  the  3000 
words  in  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list.  In  fact,  the  average  number  of  the 
words  in  this  list  that  are  presented  in  the  ten  spellers  is  2102.  Therefore, 
if  we  wish  to  present  the  3000  words  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  on  the 
basis  of  the  current  practice,  v/e  shall  have  to  increase  the  average  offerings 
in  each  grade.  For  this  purpose  we  shall  have  to  set  up  a standard  for  the  in- 
crease. 


It  seems  that  the  average  of  386  words  for  Grade  2,  as  shown  in  Table 
VIIJ.  below,  is  fairly  reasonable,  since  this  would  be  only  a little  more  than 
2 new  words  a day  and  since  children  have  learned  to  spell  relatively  very  few 
words  before  they  reach  Grade  2.  The  average  number  and  the  hypothetical  number 
of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  per  grade  is  shown  in  Table  VIII. 


TABLE  VIII 

AVERAGE  AND  HYPOTHETICAL  NUMBER  OF  AYRES- 
TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS  PER  GRADE 


Ayres-Teachers  College  words  per  grade 

Grade 

Average  number  for 
ten  spellers^8-' 
which  teach  2102 

Hypothetical'  num- 
ber to  teach^) 
3000 

2 

386 

386 

3 

626 

888 

4 

667 

946 

5 

700 

993 

6 

658 

934 

7 

530 

752 

8 

507 

719 

Total  num- 

ber  of  oc- 
currences 

4074 

5618 

^The  averages  were  calculated  from  Table  VII. 


(b) 

The  hypothetical  number  was  obtained  by; 

(1)  Increasing  the  occurrences  (4074)  in  the 
same  ratio  that  the  average  number  of  Ayres- 


- 48  - 


Teachers  College  words  taught  in  the  spellers 
(2102)  is  to  the  increase  necessary  in  order 
to  teach  the  3000  Ayres-Teachers  College  words. 

(2)  After  the  occurrences  were  thus  increased 
to  56l8,  the  386  occurrences  for  Grade  2 were 
subtracted  leaving  5232  occurrences.  (3)  Then 
the  386  occurrences  for  Grade  2 were  subtracted  , 

from  4074  occurrences  leaving  3688.  (4)  There- 

fore, the  increase  in  number  of  occurrences 
is  1544  which  gives  41.9  percent.  (5)  Hence, 
above  the  second  grade  each  grade-average  for 
the  ten  spellers  was  increased  by  this  percent 
to  obtain  the  hypothetical  grade-average  num- 
ber of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words. 

The  sudden  drop  in  the  number  of  words  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers 
College  list  in  Grades  7 and  8 of  Book  III  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  long  quo- 
tations from  literature  were  omitted.  It  should  be  noted  for  Grade  8 of  Book  X 
that  the  rapid  rise  in  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  is  due  probably 
to  the  fact  that  in  this  grade  appeared  four  one-page  letters  to  be  used  for  dic- 
tation purposes.  These  facts  suggest  that  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College 
in  a grade  is  influenced  by  the  amount  of  dictation  in  that  grade.  In  order  to 
find  out  the  extent  of  this  suggested  influence,  the  correlation  between  the  num- 
ber of  words  in  dictation  and  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  found 
in  the  grade  was  calculated  on  the  arrays  of  the  grades  in  the  ten  spellers,  and 
it  was  found  that  by  the  Pearson  product-moment  formula  the  value  of  r was  +0.48. 
This  coefficient  is  high  enough  to  indicate  that  the  author  of  a speller  may 
partly  provide  for  the  appearance  of  these  words  by  including  in  each  grade  a 
liberal  supply  of  dictation  material.  Of  course,  the  more  carefully  the  dicta- 
tion material  is  chosen  with  respect  to  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College 
words  it  contains,  the  more  the  spelling  of  these  words  will  be  guaranteed.  That 
the  proper  selection  or  composition  of  this  dictation  material  requires  great 
care,  follows  without  question.  Hence,  the  task  of  selection  should  not  be 
placed  on  the  classroom  teacher  but  it  should  be  done  by  the  authors  of  the 
spellers. 

The  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  found  in  a grade  is 


- 1 . • 


. 

. 


\ • • 

. 


.. 


> • . 

. 


. 


. 


■ 


.. 

. . . ■ i ■ •'  ; 


, 


■,  . . . . . 


* • 


■ ■ 


; ...  Y ' • . ■ ' ■ 


. 


■ . . ■ j ■ | _ • - • 


j . .. 


. 


■ 


. . . . 


...  . . ' : 


. .. 


- 49  - 


influenced  not  only  by  the  amount  of  dictation  but  also  by  the  number  of  differ- 
ent words  in  the  grade.  The  correlation  between  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers 
College  words  and  the  number  of  different  words  in  a grade  calculated  by  the 
Pearson  product-moment  formula  on  the  arrays  for  the  ten  spellers  is  +0.47.  This 
is  also  a relatively  high  positive  correlation.  It  suggests  that  an  author  by 
the  laws  of  chance  rnay  insure  a large  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  by 
offering  a large  number  of  different  words  in  each  grade. 

We  have  already  indicated  in  this  chapter  that  for  these  ten  books 
there  is  no  relation  between  the  number  of  different  words  in  the  books  and  the 
number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words.  This  would  seem  to  be  at  variance  with 
the  statement  we  have  just  made.  It  would  appear  on  the  one  hand  that  by  in- 
creasing the  size  of  the  book  an  author  does  not  increase  his  chances  of  includ- 
ing the  significant  words  with  which  we  deal.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  appear 
that  by  enlarging  the  grade  offerings  he  may  increase  his  chances  of  including 
such  words. 

The  apparent  contradiction,  however,  is  easily  explained.  Our  record 
of  the  number  of  words  in  a book  is  net--i.  e.,  all  duplicates  anywhere  in  the 
book  excluded.  On  the  contrary,  our  representation  of  grade  offerings  (Table 
VII)  shows  each  word  that  occurred  in  a grade  regardless  of  whether  or  not  it 
occurred  in  another  grade.  Thus,  it  would  be  possible  for  a single  word  to  be 
counted  seven  times  in  a book  offering  instruction  to  Grades  2 to  8 inclusive. 

Tc  the  extent  that  words  thus  occurring  in  more  than  one  grade  tended  to  be 
Ayres-Teachers  College  words,  enlargement  of  grade  offerings  would  be  positively 
related  to  the  appearance  of  the  words  of  this  list.  Now,  it  is  precisely  the 
words  of  this  list  which,  more  strongly  than  words  outside  of  it,  reappear  in 
successive  grades.  Hence  we  find  that  the  size  of  the  grade  offerings  is  posi- 
tively correlated  with  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  presented  in 
each  grade— and  this  is  despite  the  fact  of  absence  of  correlation  for  entire 


- 50  - 


books  when  the  basis  is  the  net  number  of  words  per  book. 

The  distribution  of  the  learning  and  reviewing  load  as  far  as  the 
Ayres- Teachers  College  words  are  involved  is  an  important  consideration  for  the 
grade  teacher.  Table  VII  shov/s  an  increase  and  then  a decrease  in  the  number  of 
these  words  with  advancing  grades  in  all  the  spellers  except  Books  VI  and  IX. 

Book  VI  decreases  uniformly  from  the  beginning,  while  Book  IX  is  irregular.  The 
fact  that  the  number  increases  and  then  decreases  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact 
that  a given  word  may  appear  in  more  than  one  grade.  For  example,  it  may  appear 
in  Grade  2 for  the  first  time  and  again  in  successive  grades,  perhaps  Grades  3 
and  4.  This  statement  is  based  on  a study  of  the  appearance  of  100  words  in  the 
different  grades.  Therefore,  the  fact  that  the  number  of  Ayres-Teachers  College 
words  increases  and  then  decreases  with  advancing  grades  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  the  number  of  new  words  from  this  list  increases  and  then  decreases. 

The  data  in  Table  VII,  however,  seem  to  indicate  that  the  learning  and  review  of 
the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  is  cumulative  up  to  the  end  of  the  middle  grades. 

Hatio  of  Ayres-Teachers  Co  liege  Words  to  the  Different  Words  in  Each  Grade 

The  preceding  discussion  was  concerned  with  the  absolute  number  of 
Ayres-Teachers  College  words,  but  in  a study  of  the  vocabularies  of  the  spellers 
we  are  also  concerned  about  the  relative  proportion  of  the  number  of  the  "most 
frequently  used  words"  and  of  the  other  words  not  so  frequently  used.  That  is, 
"What  percent  of  the  words  taught  and  reviewed  in  a given  grade  are  the  'most 
frequently  used  words'?"  Table  IX  shows  the  practice  for  the  ten  spellers  used 
in  our  project. 

Following  the  data  for  each  grade  through  each  book,  one  observes  that 
with  advancing  grades  there  is  a decreasing  percent  of  all  the  words  in  the  grade 
that  are  Ayres-Teachers  College  words.  That  is,  as  the  pupil  advances  through 
the  grades,  he  is  confronted  with  a less  and  less  proportion  of  "most  frequently 
used  words."  This  practice  can  only  be  justified  on  the  assumption  that  the 


- 51  - 


table  IX 

PER  CENT  OF  WORDS  IN  EACH  GRADE  THAT  ARE  AYRES- TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS 


Grade 

Book 

r 1 law 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

82.7 

70.3 

90.0 

93.1 

68.6 

71.0 

Ti H 

88.3 

3 

8o.7 

60.5 

76.9 

90.1 

77.6 

81.7 

64.5 

67-3 

55.5 

65-7 

4 

70.0 

55.3 

60.5 

78.5 

51.0 

50.6 

63.0 

59-1 

48.4 

57.7 

5 

80.8 

48.3 

58.0 

71.2 

51.8 

47.4 

60.8 

57.1 

62.3 

55-5 

6 

63.9 

43.8 

60.7 

64.7 

43.8 

38.7 

56.6 

51.7 

45.3 

49.0 

7 

55.7 

37.1 

34.0 

50.7 

43.0 

33.4 

54.6 

51.7 

39.7 

47.2 

8 

29.7 

30.7 

31.5 

39.6 

38.4 

32.2 

33.3 

48.8 

31.5 

48.9 

(a) 


These  books  do  not  provide  spelling  for  Grade  2. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  82.7  percent  of  the  different  words  are 

common  to  the  Ayres-Teacher s College  List;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I,  80.7  per. 
cent  of  the  different  words  are  common  to  the  Ayres-Teacher s College 
List;  etc. 


- 52  - 


pupil  has  learned  to  spell  accurately  the  larger  proportion  of  these  words  in 
the  lower  grades. 

Possibly  this  is  true  to  a certain  extent  for  about  1000  of  the  words 
in  the  Ayres-Teacher s College  list,  that  is,  for  the  Ayres  so-called  "thousand 
commonest  words."  However,  when  this  list  is  learned  there  still  remain  2000  of 
the  "most  frequently  used  words"  to  be  taught,  and  it  seems  scarcely  possible 
that  these  2000  words  would  be  anywhere  nearly  exhausted  in  the  lower  grades. 

In  fact,  we  know  from  testing  children  in  spelling  these  words,  that  they  are 
not  taught  to  such  a degree  of  perfection  in  the  lower  grades  as  to  justify 
dropping  them  to  a large  extent  in  the  upper  grades. 

That  there  is  no  uniformity  of  practice  in  regard  to  the  proportion  of 
all  the  different  words  in  the  grades  that  are  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  is 
shown  by  the  range  of  percents  in  a given  grade  for  the  ten  bocks.  For  example, 
in  Grade  2 the  range  is  14.5  percent,  while  in  Grade  8 the  range  is  19.2  percent. 
The  greatest  range  is  in  Grade  3 where  it  runs  from  55.1  in  one  book  to  90.1  in 
another  or  a range  of  nearly  35  percent.  The  median  of  these  ranges  is  26.0 
percent . 

Percent  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  3000  Words  Found  in  Each  Grade 

The  percent  of  the  three  thousand  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  in  each 
grade  will  also  give  some  notion  of  the  teaching  load  per  grade  as  far  as  these 
words  are  concerned  and  again  of  the  wide  variation  in  practice  among  the  spell- 
ers. 

The  data  on  this  basis  for  our  ten  spellers  are  shown  in  Table  X. 

Again,  the  range  in  the  percent  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  is 
wide,  indicating  little  agreement  as  to  the  number  of  these  words  that  should 
be  taught  and  reviewed  in  each  of  the  grades.  It  should  be  noted  that  in  Book 
III  Grades  7 and  8 the  percents  fall  low.  This  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact, 
as  mentioned  before,  that  certain  long  literary  selections  were  not  considered. 


. 


■ 


. 

•:  . , 


O . • 


t 


- 

A . ' 


. 

*< 


' 


' 


' 


vr- 


. 


- 53  - 


table  X 

PERCENT  OF  AYRES- TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS  IN  EACH  GRADE 


Grade 

Book 



I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

10.6 

16.4 

11.1 

13.0 

(a) 

(a) 

13.2 

13.5 

(a) 

12.3 

3 

15.8 

17.5 

19.2 

27.9 

24.6 

27.8 

17.7 

24.4 

19.0 

14.5 

4 

20.3 

17.5 

26 . 4 

32.2 

21.0 

23.4 

20.9 

27.2 

18.3 

14.6 

5 

26.0 

14.9 

28.2 

29.8 

27.4 

20.8 

22.7 

26.9 

22.8 

13.9 

6 

21.9 

15.5 

30.6 

27.9 

27.3 

15.9 

21.5 

25.6 

20.6 

12.5 

7 

14.7 

14.1 

7.5 

14.5 

28.1 

15.2 

21.1 

27.2 

22.7 

11.3 

8 

12.3 

14.4 

14.1 

14.1 

23.9 

15.0 

9.4 

26.0 

20.1 

l8.6 

(a) 


These  books  do  not  provide  spelling  for  Grade  2. 

Table  reads;  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  are  found  10.6  percent  of  the  3000 
Ayres-Teachers  College  words;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I,  are  found  15.8 
percent  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words;  etc. 


- 54  - 


The  percent  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  decreases  in  general 

with  advancing  grades  in  Books  IV  and  VI.  In  Books  VIII,  IX,  and  X the  percents 

remain  practically  the  same  with  advancing  grades.  In  the  main  for  Books  I,  II, 
III,  V,  and  VII  the  percents  increase  slightly  up  to  the  middle  grades  and  then 
in  the  upper  grades  show  a slight  decrease.  This  last  tendency  would  seem  to  be 
the  best  because  naturally  there  would  be  a piling  up  of  these  words  to  provide 
for  automatic  learning.  The  large  percent  at  the  beginning  of  the  grades  is  due 
to  the  necessity  of  teaching  the  words  that  the  pupils  need  in  their  written 
work  and  to  the  fact  that  these  words  are  found  in  abundance  in  the  Ayres-Teach- 
ers College  list.  A continually  decreasing  percent  assumes  that  each  grade  dis- 
poses of  a considerable  number  of  the  words;  and  this  can  only  be  done  by  teach- 
ing them  substantially  to  the  point  of  perfection.  This  assumption  is  too 
optimistic  because  we  know  from  the  results  of  testing  the  spelling  of  the  pupils 

throughout  the  grades  that  they  are  slow  to  learn  to  perfection  the  spelling  of 

the  words  that  society  demands  they  know.  It  is  possible  that  the  percents  in 
the  lower  grades  are  taking  care  of  the  proper  proportion  of  the  words  of  this 
list,  but  in  order  that  more  words  of  the  list  might  be  taught  we  suggest  a 
larger  percent  in  the  upper  grades.  Therefore,  perhaps  making  the  percents  in 
the  several  grades  approximately  the  same  instead  of  decreasing  them  with  ad- 
vancing grades  would  be  a better  arrangement. 

Percents  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  Components  in  Each  Grade 

The  extent  to  which  makers  of  spellers  use  the  Ayres-Teachers  College 
words  may  be  examined  from  another  point  of  view,  namely,  the  proportion  of  the 
words  in  each  of  the  two  components  of  this  list  that  appear  in  each  grade  in 
each  speller.  We  prepared  tables  similar  to  Table  X for  the  percent  of  the 
Ayres  "thousand  commonest  words"  and  for  the  percent  of  the  Teachers  College 
"second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words"  which  appear  in  each 
grade  in  each  book.  We  are  not  presenting  these  in  detail,  but  we  are  giving 


> . 


■ 


• 

, 

. 

. 1 

; * 

'• 

* " *-  • 

. > j 

■ ■ ; 

% 

• 

- 

.L  . 

*.* 

. 

. . • *. 

. ' . . , 

. . . 

...... 

. . . . 

■ • . ... 

* ^ • • 

' , . ■ -l 

■ ' X'A 

■ ' ■ 

. 

' ...  ; 


■ 


V 


- 55  - 

a composite  of  the  ten  spellers  for  each  grade  by  showing  the  median  percents. 
The  standards  of  present  practice  thus  obtained  are  shown  in  Table  XI. 

TABLE  XI 

MEDIAN  PERCENT  OF  EACH  OF  THE  COMPONENTS 
OF  THE  AYRES- TEACHERS  COLLEGE  LIST 
IN  EACH  GRADE 


Grade 

Median  percent  of 

Ayres  List 

Teachers  Col- 
lege List 

2 

27.1 

6.0 

3 

37.8 

11.9 

4 

39.6 

12.9 

5 

43.5 

15-7 

6 

38.1 

14.9 

7 

25.6 

12.9 

8 

23.2 

12.5 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2 the  median  on 

the  basis  of  the  ten  spellers  used 
in  our  project  is  27.1  percent  of 
the  Ayres  ’’thousand  commonest  words” 
and  6.0  percent  of  the  Teachers  Col- 
lege ’’second  and  third  thousand  most 
frequently  used  words”;  etc. 

It  is  obvious  that  a far  greater  percent  of  the  Ayres  words  are  in 
evidence  than  of  the  Teachers  College  words.  This  is  due  to  two  reasons  at 
least.  First,  the  Ayres  words  having  a much  higher  frequency,  have  greater 
chances  of  being  presented  in  dictation  and  more  obvious  value  for  presentation  J 
in  columns.  Second,  the  Ayres  list  has  been  known  much  longer  than  the  Teachers 
College  list  as  such. 


- - 


CHAPTER  V 
GRADATION  OF  VOCABULARY 

After  the  vocabulary  has  been  selected  for  the  pupils  of  the  element- 
ary schools , the  words  must  be  assigned  to  the  different  grades.  There  are 
many  different  ways  in  which  this  gradation  of  the  selected  vocabulary  may  be 
done.  Starch1  suggests  the  following  possibilities:  "(1)  We  might  distribute 
the  words  according  to  their  frequency,  putting  the  most  frequent  words  in  the 
lower  grades  and  the  less  frequent  words  in  the  upper  grades.  (2)  We  might  put 
each  word  into  the  grade  in  which  children  first  begin  to  use  it  frequently  in 
their  writing.  (3)  Wre  might  put  each  word  into  the  grade  in  which,  according 
to  the  consensus  of  competent  judges,  such  as  teachers,  say  it  ought  to  be  put." 
He  considered  the  last  method  the  proper  one  when  he  constructed  his  word  lists 
for  the  grades. 

Horn  lists  the  following  principles  of  gradation  which  "have  been 
most  urged  of  late":  (1)  "Those  words  which  are  most  difficult  should  be  pre- 
sented in  the  more  advanced  grades."  (2)  "Those  words  which  are  commonly  used 
by  the  children  in  a given  grade  should  be  placed  in  that  grade."  (3)  "Those 
words  which  are  most  commonly  used  in  correspondence  should  be  taught  earliest, 
on  the  ground  that  the  school  must  insure  the  correct  spelling  of  such  words 
before  the  elimination  of  pupils  becomes  serious."  (4)  "Those  words  needed  in 
other  subjects  should  be  taught  in  appropriate  grades."  (5)  "Words  should  be 
graded  according  to  their  length,"  (6;  "Words  should  be  graded  according  to 
phonic  progression," 


1 Starch,  Daniel.  E du  cat  i onal  p sy  ch  o 1 o gy  , New  York:  Macmillan  Company,  1919, 

p.  330. 

2 

Horn,  Ernest.  "Principles  of  method  in  teaching  spelling  as  derived  from  sci- 
entific investigation."  The  Eighteenth  Yearbook  of  the  National  Society  for  the 

rc/pp HublTrScKooT  Fu  Eli sh i r- "Company^ 


- 57  - 

TidymarW  says:  "We  are  probably  agreed  that  the  use  of  the  word  is  the 
most  important  factor  determining  the  grade  in  which  it  should  be  taught.  The 
child  should  learn  to  spell  words  at  approximately  the  time  that  he  is  going  to 

use  them.  The  question  of  the  difficulty  of  the  word  as  a principle  of  grading 

/ 

is  secondary  to  that  of  use.  Naturally,  a word  should  not  be  placed  in  a grade 
when  it  presents  little  or  no  difficulty.  In  general,  a word  should  be  placed 
in  the  grade  where  it  is  used  and  where  it  needs  to  be  taught." 

These  quotations  contain  six  principles  of  gradation  which  might  be 
used  in  placing  words  in  the  different  grades.  Those  principles  are  : (1)  Place 
the  "more  frequently  occurring  words"  in  the  lower  grades;  (2)  place  the  words 
commonly  used  by  the  children  in  a given  grade,  especially  those  appearing  for 
the  first  time  in  use  by  the  children;  (3)  place  the  words  in  the  grade  in  which 
^he  opinion  of  supposedly"  competent  judges,  e.g,  teachers,  say  they  should  be 
placed;  (4)  place  in  a grade  the  words  that  are  needed  in  other  subjects  in  the 
S-Ver  grade;  (5)  place  the  words  in  the  grades  according  to  phonic  progression; 
and  (6)  place  the  words  in  the  grades  according  to  grads  difficulty  of  spelling 
the  words,  the  less  difficult  words  in  the  lower  grades  and  the  more  difficult 
words  in  the  upper  grades.  The  principle  of  length  of  words  is  closely  correlat- 
ed with  the  principle  of  difficulty  as  shown  by  Ayr es^  who  found  a Pearson  coeffi- 
cient of  correlation  of  C,  73  between  the  length  of  the  words  in  his  scale  and  the 
difficulty  of  spelling  the  words. 

’.Ve  did  not  attempt  in  our  study  to  determine  the  grading  of  words  in 
the  spellers  according  to  the  principle  of  "need  in  other  subjects",  or  the  prin- 
ciple of  phonic  progression",  because  in  the  first  place  we  did  not  have  reli- 
able data  on  either  and  in  the  second  place  the  problem  offered  too  many  complex- 


Tidyman,  W.F.  The  teaching  of  spelling,  Yonker-cn-Hudson;  World  Book  Company, 
1919.  p.  10. 

Ayres,  L.P,  Measurement  of  ability  in  spelling,  Russell  Sage  Foundation. 
1915,  P.  38.  “ — 


- 58  •* 


itiee  for  our  purposes.  Neither  did  we  attempt  to  study  the  grade  placement 
according  to  the  principle  of  "opinion  of  competent  judges’*  because  the  list  of 
words  so  determined  is  limited  in  number  and  lacked  quantitative  expression  for 
frequency  and  for  difficulty — two  factors  that  v/e  wished  to  use  in  many  differ- 
ent ways  in  our  project.  V/e  do  not  deny  the  validity  of  the  principles  of  "fre- 
quency of  use  in  adult  life"  and  "in  child  life."  They  should  no  doubt  function 
in  the  gradation  of  words  and  we  have  made  certain  uses  of  the  first  of  these 
two  principles  in  our  project.  However,  it  is  quite  possible  to  determine  the 
placement  of  words,  with  certain  limitations,  in  the  grades  according  to  those 
principles  and  we  feel  that  this  should  be  done,  but  we  were  not  able  to  do  so 

on  account  of  lack  of  time  after  we  had  made  our  study  of  gradation  by  another 
principle. 

We  confined  our  study  of  the  gradation  of  the  vocabulary  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  "difficulty  of  spelling"  which  is  recognised  by  Horn  and  by  Tidyman  as 
a principle  that  should  operate.  It  appeals  to  us  as  an  important  principle  be- 
cause in  the  first  place  we  have  three  thousand  words  whose  difficulty  is  ex- 
pressed in  quantitative  terms;  in  the  second  place,  we  hold  that  the  words  in  a 
given  grade  should  have  some  relation  to  the  abilities  of  the  children  in  the 
given  grade  and  only  by  using  the  principle  of  difficulty  could  we  study  this 
relation,  further,  the  principle  of  difficulty  is  operating  in  grading  words 
because  of  the  wide  use  of  such  spelling  scales  as  Ayres's,  Ashbaugh’s  and  no 
doubt  soon  the  Teachers  College  sixteen  spelling  scales.  I 

In  our  study  of  the  gradation  of  the  vocabulary,  we  are  concerned  with 
(a)  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  each  grade  in  each  speller,  (b)  the  grads 
difficulty  as  based  on  the  median  difficulty  of  each  grade  for  the  ten  spellers 

used  in  our  3tudy , (c)  the  difficulty  of  each  speller  as  a whole,  and  (d)  the 

. 

possiblity  of  ranking  each  speller  on  the  basis  of  difficulty. 

It  is  impossible  at  present  to  determine  the  difficulty  of  all  the 


- 59- 


words  found  in  the  different  spellers  because  of  the  lack  of  data  on  so  large  a 
number  of  words  as  this  would  require.  We  are  compelled,  then,  to  make  use  of 
the  principle  of  sampling  of  the  word-content  of  the  spellers  and  to  assume  that 
the  words  taken  by  the  sampling  process  are  representative  of  all  the  others  in 
the  spellers.  The  larger  the  number  of  words  taken  by  the  sampling  process  and 
the  more  nearly  the  words  are  taken  at  random,  the  more  nearly  will  the  data  be 
representative  of  the  true  spelling  difficulty  of  the  words  contained  in  the 
books.  Our  random  sampling  ’ms  confined  to  taking  the  words  in  the  spellers  which 
were  common  to  our  list  and  for  which  we  knew  the  difficulty  of  each  word.  As  far 
as  the  number  of  words  is  concerned  we  were  again  confined  to  the  three  thousand 
in  the  combined  Ayres  and  Teachers  College  lists.  We  have  already  shown  that 
approximately  two  thousand  of  these  words  are  common  to  each  of  the  different 
spexlers.  This  would  seem  to  be  a sufficient  number  to  give  a fairly  accurate 
picture  of  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  the  spellers. 

The  difficulty  of  the  words  in  these  two  lists  is  not  expressed  in  the 
same  units,  and  it  was  therefore  necessary  for  our  purpose  that  this  be  done. 

Our  work  was  greatly  expedited  by  the  conversion  table  devised  by  the  authors  of 
the  Teachers  College  list'*.  They  had  already  expressed  the  difficulty  of  the 
’./oi  ls  in  uheir  list  in  units  of  one-tenth  sigma  from  the  Buckingham  zero  of  spend- 
ing difficulty.  They  then  derived  by  experiment,  on  the  same  basis,  the  value  of 
each  column  of  words  on  the  Ayres  Scale  for  spelling  ability.  Using  these  data, 
we  assigned  to  eacn  word  of  Ayres  list  its  appropriate  difficulty  figure.  Then 
the  Ayres  words  were  typewritten  in  alphabetical  order  together  with  the  diffi- 
culty of  each  word  and  its  frequency  of  occurrence  in  life.  The  Teachers  College 
words  were  already  printed  in  alphabetical  order  showing  the  frequency  and  the 
difficulty  of  each  word.  We  kept  the  lists  separate  in  order  that  we  might  study 

sp el 1 i_n&  s cal e s , Teachers  College  Record,  21:  3*5,  September,  1920. 


5 


- 60  - 

the  findings  for  the  different  lists.  When  we  wished  to  study  data  derived  by 
the  use  of  the  two  lists,  it  was  a simple  and  straightforward  matter  to  combine 
the  two  set3  of  data. 

Distribution  tables  were  prepared  showing  the  difficulty  of  the  Ayres 
words  and  the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  these  words  in  each  grade  in  each  of 
the  ten  spellers.  Similar  tables  were  prepared  for  the  Teachers  College  words. 
Thus  we  obtained  tv/o  tables  for  each  grade--one  on  the  basis  of  the  Ayres  so- 
called  "thousand  commonest  words"  common  to  the  grade,  and  one  on  the  basis  of 
the  Teachers  College  so-called  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used 

words."  Then  for  certain  purposes  we  combined  the  two  tables  for  each  grade  in- 
to one  table. 

These  tables  were  in  reality  correlation  tables  for  frequency  of  occur- 
rence of  words  in  the  spellers  and  the  difficulty  of  these  words.  On  the  dis- 
tribution of  difficulty  side  of  each  table  we  found  the  median  difficulty.  The 
data  obtained  in  this  manner  form  the  basis  of  one  part  of  this  chapter.  Data 
somewhat  similarly  derived  form  the  basis  of  another  part  of  the  chapter. 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  report  the  median  difficulty  of  each  grade  in 
each  book,  the  median  difficulty  of  each  of  the  grades  based  on  a composite  of 
th“  ^erl  spellers,  the  difficulty  of  each  of  the  ten  spellers  as  a whole,  and  a 
judgment  of  the  spellers  in  terms  of  difficulty. 

Table  XIT  expresses  the  median  difficulty  of  each  grade-offering  in 
oacb  book  as  determined  by  the  median  difficulty  of  the  words  in  each  grade  com- 
mon to  the  Ayres-Tsachers  College  list. 

A study  of  the  difficulty  of  each  grade  in  each  book  reveals  that  in 
general,  as  would  be  expected,  the  median  difficulty  of  the  words  common  to  the 
Ayres-Teachers  College  last  and  each  grade  increases  »vith  advancing  grades.  That 
is,  if  the  words  common  to  each  grade  and  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  are  re- 
presentative of  the  difficulty  of  words  in  the  grade,  we  can  say  that  in  general 


u 


, 


.. 


- 


' • 


• , 


. 


. 


. 

4. 


v . 


• ' - • « 


r 


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- 61  - 


, ^ TABLE  XII 

MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY^ OF  THE  AYRES- TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS 
AS  FOUND  IN  EACH  GRADE  AND  BOOK 


Grade 

Book 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

I VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

26.8 

32.4 

39.2 

29.5 

(b) 

(b) 

32.2 

30.5 

(b) 

35.7 

3 

32.1 

35. s 

32.7 

33.6 

34.1 

34.4 

33.6 

33.7 

33.1 

34.6 

4 

33.9 

36.9 

35.1 

35.0 

35.8 

37.5 

37.6 

35.6 

35.3 

37.7 

5 

37.5 

38.0 

36.3 

37.9 

38.4 

40.7 

39.2 

38.3 

38.0 

41.1 

6 

39.3 

39.2 

38.2 

41.0 

38.7 

44.0 

42.5 

41.4 

40.4 

43.8 

7 

41.4 

36.7 

47.6 

43.2 

40.7 

45.2 

42.4 

43.2 

41.8 

47.5 

8 

39.6 

39.6 

46.8 

44.2 

CM 

• 

H 

* 

47.8 

47.2 

44.1 

42.3 

43.4 

(a) 

(b) 


The  median  difficulty  is  expressed  in  terms  of  ten  times  the  sigma  dis- 
tance from  the  Buckingham  zero  of  spelling  difficulty. 

These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  the  median  difficulty  of  the  textbook 

words  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  List  is  28.8;  in  Grade  3, 
Book  I,  the  median  difficulty  of  the  textbook  words  is  32.1;  etc. 


<■ 


I 


- 62  - 


the  difficulty  of  the  words  increases  with  the  advancing  grades.  This  would  seem 
to  be  strong  evidence  that  the  principle  of  difficulty  has  been  operating  in  the 
gradation  of  words  in  our  spellers  and  that  we  are  measuring  a gradation  factor 
common  to  all  the  spellers.  Hence  books  may  be  compared  on  the  basis  of  diffi- 
culty without  fear  of  measuring  some  book  by  a standard  which  does  not  apply. 

However,  in  certain  books  there  are  some  exceptions  to  the  general  rule 
that  the  median  grade  difficulty  progresses  with  the  advancing  grades.  In  Book  I 
Grade  8 the  median  difficulty  is  lower  than  in  Grade  7.  In  Book  II  Grade  7 the 
median  difficulty  is  lower  than  in  Grade  6 and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that 
the  median  difficulty  of  Grade  7 ia  also  lower  than  the  median  difficulty  for 
Grade  4 of  the  same  book.  In  Book  III  Grade  8 the  median  difficulty  is  lower  than 
in  Grade  7.  However,  the  inversion  in  this  case  is  not  large.  In  Book  VII  Grade 
7 the  median  difficulty  lies  slightly  below  the  median  for  Grade  6.  In  Book  X 
there  are  two  inversions.  The  median  difficulty  for  Grade  3 is  lower  than  that 
for  Grade  2,  and  the  median  difficulty  for  Grade  8 falls  below  that  of  Grades  6 
and  This  las“  fact>  however,  is  due  to  the  four  pages  of  dictation  material 
unexpectedly  introduced  at  the  end  of  Grade '3.  If  our  measure  of  difficulty  is 
what  we  assumed  it  to  be,  then  it  follows  that  the  presence  of  inversions  in  dif- 
ficulty offers  strong  evidence  of  lack  of  proper  grading. 

A comparison  of  the  median  difficulty  of  a given  grade  and  speller  with 
the  median  difficulty  of  the  same  or  other  grades  in  certain  other  spellers  will  j 

show  some  interesting  facts.  For  example,  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  Grade  2 l! 

, ' ’’  fi 

of  Book  X is  greater  than  in  Grade  4 Book  I and  in  Grade  3 in  all  the  spellers  ex-  j 

cept  Book  II.  The  median  difficulty  of  the  words  in  Grade  3 Book  II  is  greater 

than  in  Grade  4 in  Books  I,  III,  IV,  VIII,  and  IX,  and  the  same  as  in  Grade  4 
Book  V. 

i 

Another  view  of  the  lack  of  agreement  in  median  grade  difficulty  may  be  I 

obtained  by  noting  in  Figure  2 the  ranges  of  grade  difficulty  as  found  in  the  ten  1 
spellers. 

I 


- 


. r 


. i 


. 'I 


. 


• J ..  i 


' 


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. 


. 


- 


, 

. 


..  i 


' f 


, .....  all  e ■ 


« . ■ . V fc 


. 


( 


. 


< " i 

. 


• < 

• . i 


- 63  - 


47 


46 


45 

44 

43 

44 

m 

40 

39 


33  x 
L 37 

'k 
36  ^ 


35 

34 

33 

32. 

3/ 

30 

29 

28 


M 

'O 


* 

V5 


h 

■ 


V5 


K 

^5 


| 


figure  £ 

/Range  of  Median  Grade 
Difficulties  for  Jen  Spelters 
da  sed  on  A ynes  - 7ea  c dens  Co/iege  fVon/s 


Grade 

4 5 


7 


F 


- 64  - 


Median  grade  difficulty  of  the  Ayres  words.  -.Because  of  the  wide  uoe 
of  the  Ayres  "thousand  commonest  words"  as  testing  words  and  consequently  as 
teaching  words,  we  decided  to  express  the  difficulty  of  these  w'ords  that  are  com- 
mon to  each  grade  in  each  book.  While  we  recognize  that  these  words  do  not  give 
as  true  a picture  of  the  difficulty  of  all  the  words  in  a given  grade  as  does 
the  Ayres-Teachera  College  list  of  which  it  is  a component,  they  will  neverthe- 
less give  an  added  touch  to  the  picture.  Furthermore,  since,  as  v/as  shown  in 
Chapter  III,  all  of  the  spellers  contain  a very  large  percent  of  these  words  and 
because  each  grade  contains  a relatively  high  percent  of  them,  we  can  observe 
fairly  accurately  the  way  in  which  the  authors  have  graded  the  Ayres  words. 

Tabic  XIII,  therefore,  shows  the  median  difficulty  of  the  words  in 
each  grade  that  are  common  to  the  Ayres  list. 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  general  the  median  grade  difficulty  becomes 
greater  as  the  grades  advance.  Nine  exceptions  occur  out  of  fifty-seven  possible 
cases.  All  these  appear  in  Grades  7 and  8.  We  are  not  surprised  to  find  inver- 
sions when  we  are  dealing  with  the  Ayres  words  because  many  of  the  high  frequency 
words  of  this  list  are  found  in  the  texts  that  have  dictation  work  for  the  pupils 
since  they  are  words  that  are  necessary  in  sentence  forming.  The  inversions  in 
the  upper  grades  are  no  doubt  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  many  easy  dictation 
words  that  are  sentence  builders  are  needed  in  order  to  introduce  to  the  children 
the  mere  difficult  words  which  is  the  real  purpose  of  the  dictation  material. 

The  ranges  are  shown  in  Figure  3 which  was  constructed  on  the  basis  of  the  data 
in  Table  XIII. 

Difficulty  based,  on  words  common  to  the  Teachers  College  list. The 

Teachers  College  words  on  the  whole  have  a much  lower  frequency  of  occurrence. 
Hence  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  not  so  many  of  them  are  found  in  the  texts  sole- 
ly for  the  purpose  of  forming  sentences  as  was  the  case  with  many  of  the  Ayres 


w?ords.  Therefore,  the  medians  calculated  on  the  basis  of  the  Teachers  College 


< 


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••  . 


r . ... 


. 


. 


; 

. 

. ...  1 . 

. 

« i 

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♦ 

* 

.... 

- 65  - 


TABLE  XXII 

MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  OF  THE  AYRES  WORDS  AS  FOUND 
IN  EACH  GRADE  AND  BOOK 


Grade 

Book 

I 

1 11 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII  \ 

T 

J X 

2 

27.9 

30.6 

29.2 

28.3 

(a) 

(a) 

29.3 

* u jar4» 

29.2 

(a) 

30.0 

3 

30.7 

32.1 

31.0 

31.4 

32.4 

32.4 

31.9 

31.4 

31.0 

32.8 

4 

32.4 

32.9 

32.5 

32.7 

32.5 

34.0 

33.9 

33.4 

32.9 

36.5 

5 

34.6 

33.2 

33.4 

34.4 

34.3 

38 . 4 

37.4 

34.7 

35.2 

40.6 

6 

35.3 

33.1 

34.0 

36.2 

33.8 

42.9 

41.7 

38.8 

35.8 

43.8 

7 

36.0 

32.8 

45.9 

38.1 

33.9 

44.2 

38.8 

40.4 

36.5 

47.5 

8 

33.4 

33.4 

43.6 

35.4  34.4 

45.8 

43.5 

36.3 

40.9 

34.7 

( a) 

' These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 


Table  reads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  the  median  difficulty  of  the  textbook 

words  common  to  the  Ayres  thousand  words  is  27*9;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I, 
the  median  difficulty  of  the  textbook  words  common  to  the  Ayres  thou- 
sand words  is  30.7;  etc. 


• ^ 


J, 

*J  . 


words  that  are  common  to  a grade  will, 


as  no  doubt  many  readers  will  believe, 

give  a better  measure  of  the  difficulty  of  the  words  intended  by  the  authors  to 
be  taught  in  the  different  grades.  The  median  difficulty  of  the  Teachers  College  | 
words  that  are  common  to  each  grade  in  each  book  is  given  in  Table  XIV. 

It  is  observed  again  that  in  general  the  median  grade  difficulty  in 
each  book  becomes  greater  as  the  grades  advance.  The  only  exceptions  are  found 
in  Book  I Grade  4,  Bock  II  Grade  7,  and  Book  IX  Grade  6,  It  should  be  noted  that 
the  number  of  inversions  when  the  Teachers  College  list  is  used  is  less  than  when 
the  medians  were  calculated  on  the  basis  of  the  Ayres  words.  This  may  indicate 
that  the  Teachers  College  words  are  easier  to  grade  from  the  standpoint  of  diffi- 
culty. If  the  assumption  is  true  that  the  Teachers  College  words  are  not  needed 
so  much  for  the  purposes  of  sentence  construction  as  are  many  of  the  Ayres  words, 
then  we  can  see  how  it  would  be  easier  to  place  these  words  in  the  proper  grade, 

A few  comparisons  of  median  grade  difficulty  will  reveal  present  prac- 
tices in  placement  of  words.  The  median  difficulty  of  the  Teachers  College  words 
common  to  Grade  2 Bock  II  is  37*7  which  is  greater  than  the  median  difficulty  in 
urade  3 in  Books  I,  ICT,  IV,  VII,  and  X.  The  median  difficulty  of  similarly  se- 
lected words  in  Grade  3 Book  II  is  40.1  which  is  greater  than  the  median  diffi- 
culty in  Grade  4 Books  I, IV,  VIII,  IX,  and  X.  The  median  difficulty  in  Grade  4 
Books  II  and  VII  is  equal  to  or  greater  than  the  median  difficulty  in  Grade  5 
Books  I,  TIT,  IV,  VIII,  IX,  and  X.  In  Grade  7 Book  X the  median  difficulty  is 
47.6  which  is  greater  than  in  Grade  8 Books  I,  II,  V,  and  IX,  and  the  same  as 
the  median  difficulty  in  Grade  8 Book  VIII. 

One  is  inclined  to  feel  that  the  preceding  data  are  illustrations  of 
displacement,  of  words  rather  than  placement  of  words.  If,  for  example,  one 
speller  has  a median  grade  difficulty  of  words  for  a given  grade  and  another  uses; 
the  same  degree  of  difficulty  of  words  for  a grade  or  two  higher,  which  one  is 

correct  or,  more  practically,  which  speller  should  be  selected  for  the  given 
irrade? 


- 67  - 


46 
45 
1 44 
43 
42 


4/ 


40 


30 


23  ^ 
37 

I 


T 

* 

,5 


<0 

* 

£ 


\ 

,5 


i 

V5 


35 


34 


33 


32. 


3/ 


* 

V5 


V* 


29 


26 


27 


M 

§ 

V5 


A/<7L/re  3 

f?ar>ye  or  Med/a/?  Grade 
B/ff/cu/f/es  for  7er?  Spe//ers 
Based  0/7  Byres  Words 


Grade 
5 e 


- 68  - 


TABLE  XIV 

MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  OF  THE  TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS 
AS  POUND  IN  EACH  GRADE  AND  BOOK 


Grade 

Book 



I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

34.4 

37.7 

36.2 

36.1 

(a) 

(a) 

35.9 

35.4 

(a) 

34.4 

3 

37-5 

40.1 

37.2 

37.5 

40.6 

39.3 

37.6 

37.7 

38.3 

37.1 

4 

37.1 

41.5 

40.4 

39.2 

41.0 

40.9 

41.5 

39.4 

39.0 

38.7 

5 

41.3 

42.7 

41.8 

41.4 

42.5 

42.3 

43.1 

41.6 

41.2 

41.4 

6 

43.7 

44.2 

42.6 

43.3 

43.0 

45-0 

44.0 

43.1 

39.4 

43.8 

7 

44.9 

43.0 

48.9 

45.4 

44.8 

46.3 

45.4 

45.1 

44.0 

47.6 

8 

45.6 

45.4 

49.2 

48.6 

45.1 

49.4 

48.9 

47.6 

44.8 

49.2 

(a) 


These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  the  median  difficulty  of  the  textbook 

words  common  to  the  Teachers  College  List  is  34.4;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I, 
the  median  difficulty  of  the  textbook  words  common  to  the  Teachers 
College  List  is  37*5;  etc. 


J 

Another  view  of  the  extent  to  which  the  material  in  a given  grade  and 
book  is  similar  in  difficulty  to  the  material  in  the  same  grade  of  a difforent 
book  may  be  seen  in  the  series  of  grade  ranges  as  shown  in  Figure  4. 

One  of  the  most  striking  facts  is  the  grade  overlapping.  For  example, 
there  are  some  spellers  whose  median  difficulty  for  Grade  3 is  as  easy  as  or  eas-  1 
ier  than  that  cf  Grade  2 in  other  spellers.  The  extent  of  "overlap"  for  Grade  3 
on  Grade  4 is  great.  The  range  for  Grade  5 Is  relatively  narrow  and  "overlaps" 
slightly  cn  Grade  4.  Grade  6 completely  "overlaps"  Grade  5 and  extends  over  the 
uppei  half  of  the  range  for  Grade  4,  it  is  the  grade  in  which  the  textbook  mak- 
ers are  most  at  variance  with  each  other.  Grade  8 "overlaps"  to  a great  extent 
Grade  7 and  the  upper  limit  goes  relatively  only  a short  distance  above  the  upper 
limit  of  Grade  7. 

Another  way  of  looking  at  the  difficulty  of  the  grades  expressed  in 
terms  of  the  Teachers  College  words  common  to  them  is  to  express  the  difficulty 
coefficient  in  an  equivalent  column  and  word  found  in  the  Ayres  scale  for  meas- 
uring spelling  ability.  Table  XIV-A  shows  these  data. 

In  the  first  place  we  have  shown  for  the  median  grade  difficulty  that 
^.here  is  progress  in  difficulty  with  advancing  grades,  whether  we  use  the  compos- 
ite Ay  res -Teachers  College  list,  the  Ayres  list  of  the  "thousand  commonest  words’,’ 
cr  the  Teachers  College  list  of  the  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently 
used  words."  We  have  shown  that  in  certain  spellers  there  are  exceptions  to  the 

general  rule  of  greater  difficulty  with  advancing  grades  regardless  of  whether  we  I 

. 

used  as  a basis  for  deriving  the  median  difficulty  the  Ayres-Teachers  College 
list,  the  Ayres  list  or  the  Teachers  College  list.  We  have  shown  also  that  a 
higher  grade  in  a given  speller  is  not  necessarily  more  difficult  than  a lower 
grade  in  another  speller.  For  example,  the  median  difficulty  in  Grade  5 Book  I \ 

j 

is  less  than  the  median  difficulty  in  Grade  4 Book  VII  on  the  basis  of  the  Teach- 
ers College  list.  Further,  we  have  shown  the  extent  of  the  distribution  for  the 


! 


- 70  - 


49 


48 


47 


46 


45 


K 

* 

V5 


i 

V5 


44 


43 


42 


|| 

40  ^ 

$ 


3d 


§ 

vs 


Ijh 


,5 

vs 


5 

Vs 


37 

36 

3S 

L24 

03 

3Z 

b/ 

30 


M 

£ 

vs 


I M/p  ore  4 

Marpe  or  A/ec/(  a /?  Grade 
Mjffrco/t/es  for  7e/?  Spaders 
Zased  or  Teachers  Co//ege  M/ords 


Grade 
0 6 


- 71  - 


TABLE  XIV-A 

THE  MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  OF  THE  TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS  AS  FOUND  IN  EACH  GRADE 
AND  SPELLER  EXPRESSED  IN  TERMS  OF  COLUMNS  AND  WORDS  ON  THE  AYRES  SCALE 


Book 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

M 

N 

N 

N 

(a) 

(&) 

M 

M 

(a) 

M 

trust 

except 

except 

except 

trust 

trust 

trust 

3 

N 

P 

N 

N 

P 

0 

N 

N 

0 

N 

except 

spend 

except 

except 

spend 

eight 

except 

except 

eight 

except 

4 

N 

P 

P 

0 

P 

P 

P 

0 

0 

0 

except 

spend 

spend 

eight 

spend 

spend 

spend 

eight 

eight 

eight 

5 

P 

Q 

P 

P 

Q 

Q 

Q 

P 

P 

P 

spend 

final 

spend 

spend 

final 

final 

final 

spend 

spend 

spend 

6 

Q 

R 

Q 

Q 

Q 

R 

R 

Q 

0 

Q 

final 

lose 

final 

final 

final 

lose 

lose 

final 

eight 

final 

7 

R 

Q 

T 

R 

R 

S 

R 

R 

Q 

T 

lose 

final  guess 

lose 

lose  often 

lose 

lose 

final  guess 

8 

S 

R 

U 

T 

R 

'U 

T 

T 

R 

U 

often 

lose  meant  guess 

lose  meant  guess  guess 

lose  meant 

(al 


These  books  do  not  provide  spelling  for  Grade  2. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  the  median  difficulty  of  the  Teachers 

College  words  common  to  it  is  equivalent  to  Column  M on  the  Ayres 
spelling  scale  and  to  the  word  trust  found  in  this  column;  etc* 


- 72  - 


ten  spellers  cf  the  median  difficulty  for  each  grade  in  each  speller. 

The  inversions  within  a speller  and  the  varying  difficulty  of  the  words 
in  a given  grade  in  the  different  spellers  make  the  problem  of  selecting  a spell- 
er to  suit  the  needs  of  the  children  in  the  grades  of  a given  school  very  diffi- 
cult. First  we  should  know  as  accurately  as  possible  the  spelling  abilities  of 
the  pupils  in  the  different  grades  for  whom  a text  in  spelling  is  to  be  selected 
and  second  we  should  know  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  each  grade  of  the  spell- 
ers under  consideration.  With  these  tv.'o  factors  known  the  problem  resolves  it-, 
self  into  deciding  which  speller  is  best  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  pupils  of  the 
different  grades.  As  we  see  the  problem  in  the  light  cf  the  varying  difficulty 
within  a speller  from  grade  to  grade  and  between  spellers  for  a given  grade  it 
is  scarcely  possible  that  one  text  in  spelling  would  be  suited  best  to  the  needs 
of  the  children  in  several  grades.  It  is  possible  to  find  a speller  in  which 
the  words  are  suited  to  a given  grade;  but  when  we  consider  the  needs  of  the 
children  in  the  seven  grades  (2  to  8),  and  attempt  to  find  the  one  speller  in 
which  the  words  best  suit  the  needs  of  the  children  for  all  grades,  we  have  un- 
dertaken a difficult  problem.  Therefore,  it  would  seem  that  under  present  cir- 
cumstances a school  system  would  have  to  select  more  than  one  speller.  This 
leads  to  the  further  conclusion  that  spellers  should  be  published  for  the  sepa- 
rate grades  rather  than  one  speller  for  all  the  grades. 

Difficulty  by  Grades, 

What  is  the  difficulty  of  the  soeiling  material  that  is  being  given  to  ! 

! 

the  children  in  each  grade  in  our  American  schools  today!  In  order  to  find  an 
answer  to  this  question  an  index  number  was  computed  for  each  grade  by  calculat- 
ing the  median  difficulty  for  a given  grade  in  all  the  ten  books.  We  are  assum- 
ing that  the  ten  books  used  in  this  study  are  typical  spelling  texts  in  our 
American  schools  today  and  that  the  words  that  are  common  to  our  standard  list 
and  the  textbooks  are  typical  of  the  words  that  are  in  these  standard  textbooks. 


J 


. .it.:*; 


1 •/ 

• . 


, 


■ 


*’  ■ • ... 

. 

•-  . ... 

~L' 

'•  : 

* 

* 

.i.  ‘ 

, 

- ' ■ ' t . ..  .. 

t 

• 

* 

, J"  ..  >/. 

• - •-  • . . i . •. 


■ 


- -,i  ■ i t 


■ k '-1 


' 1 *.  • 1 , I . 


- 73  - 


A difficulty  distribution  table  was  constructed  for  each  grade  and  the 
frequency  of  occurrence  of  each  unit  difficulty  in  a given  grade  for  all  the  hooka  | 
were  added  in  order  that  a total  frequency  for  each  unit  could  be  found.  This  prc-J 
cedure  gave  eeven  tables— one  for  each  of  the  grades  from  2 to  8 inclusive. 

A series  of  seven  tables  constructed  in  this  manner  was  formed  for  the 
words  that  were  common  to  each  grade  in  each  book  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  Colley  i 
list.  Another  series  was  formed  for  the  words  that  were  common  to  each  grade  in 
each  book  and  to  the  Teachers  College  list  alone.  Thus  we  calculated  two  sets  of 
inoex  numbers  for  each  grade  from  grades  2 to  8 inclusive. 

The  index  numbers  calculated  on  the  basis  of  the  words  that  were  common 
to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  and  tc  the  respective  grades  in  the  ten  books 
are  shown  in  Table  XV. 


TABLE  XV 

INDEX  NUMBERS  BY  GRADES 
A.-T.C.  1S0RDS 


Grade 

Index 

Number 

Grade 

Interval 

2 

30.4 

3 

33.7 

3.3 

2.1 

4 

35.8 

5 

36.6 

2.8 

6 

41.2 

2.6 

7 

42.9 

1.7 

8 

43.7 

0.8 

1 

- 

I- 1 

Tbs  table  reade;;  The  index  of  difficulty 
for  Grade  2 is"~3C.4;  the  index  number  for 
Grade  3 is  33.7;  and  the  interval  between 
Grades  2 and  3 is  3.3  unit  distances;  etc. 

The  difficulty  index  number  increases,  of  course,  with  advancing  grades, 

but  the  steps  between  the  grades  decrease  in  size  from  the  lower  grades  to  the 


higher  ones.  The  range  from  the  index  number  for  Grade  2 to  the  index  number  for:| 
Grade  8 is  13.3  units. 

Since  these  figures  indicate  difficulty  measured  from  zero,  it  is  ap-  i 
parent  that  typical  eighth-grade  words  are  less  than  half  as  hard  again  as  typ- 
ical second-grade  words.  The  range  of  13.3  seems  small.  It  is  less  for  example  - 
than  the  range  for  a single  grade  according  to  the  practice  of  different  books 
(See  Grade  7»  Figure  3)* 

We  shall  have  occasion  in  the  next  few  pages  to  examine  the  range  be- 
tween grade  medians  from  different  points  of  view.  We  shall  find  that  from  all 
these  points  of  view  the  ranges  are  relatively  small.  We  have  in  other  connec- 
tions pointed  out  to  the  point  of  tediousness  the  large  degree  of  variation 
which  is  exhibited  among  things  which  purport  to  be  the  3ame.  Here  wo  have  on 
the  contrary  a relatively  narrow  variation  among  things  which  purport  to  be  dif- 
ferent. As  we  shall  point  out  later,  this  leads  to  a situation  in  which  the 
higher  grade  offerings  of  the  text  books  fall  far  short  of  the  ability  of  the 
pupils  in  the  same  grades. 

Again  in  order  to  get  a picture  of  the  difficulty  of  the  grade  material 
uninfluenced  by  the  many  sentence-forming  words  of  the  Ayres  list,  it  was  de-  j 
cided  to  calculate  the  grade  index  numbers  on  the  basis  of  the  words  that  are 
common  to  the  Teachers  College  list  and  to  each  of  the  separate  grades  in  all 
the  books.  Table  XVI  gives  the  results  of  these  calculations. 


- 75  - 


TABLE  XVI 

INDEX  NUMBERS  BY  GRADES 
T.C.  WORDS 


The  table  reads;  The  index  cf  difficulty 
for  Grade  2 ia  35*9;  the  index  of  diffi- 
culty for  Gradd  3 is  38.3;  ana  the  inter- 
val between  Grades  2 and  3 is  2.4;  etc. 

The  range  this  time  is  from  35.?  in  Grade  2 to  47.3  in  Grade  8.  This 

gives  a distance  of  11.4  units  for  the  seven  grades.  The  two  largest  intervals 

are  between  Grades  2 and  3 and  between  7 and  8.  The  intervals  between  Grades  4 

and  5.  6 and  7*  end  7 and  8 are  practically  the  same.  j 

Comparing  the  index  numbers  computed  on  the  basis  of  the  Ayres-Teach-  j 

ers  College  List  (Table  XV)  with  those  computed  on  the  basis  of  the  Teachers 

College  List  alone  (Table  XVI),  one  finds  that  the  latter  are  larger  grade  for  j 

grade  without  exception.  Further,  it  will  be  noted  in  comparing  the  grade  in-  | 

I 

tervals  shown  in  the  two  tables  that  whereas  there  was  in  the  one  case  a con- 
eietent  decrease  in  the  intervals  for  advancing  grades,  there  was  in  the  other  | 
case  irregularity  in  the  behavior  cf  the  intervale.  This  statement  is  shown  j 
clearly  in  Figure  5 which  shows  the  curve  for  the  grade  intervals  based  on  the  j 
A.-r.c.  words  and  the  one  based  on  the  T.C.  words.  From  the  best  evidence  that  l 
we  have  about  the  spelling  ability  of  the  children  in  the  elementary  schools.  j 

•we  feel  justified  in  saying  that  the  intervals  that  were  computed  on  the  basis  5 




Grade 

Index 

Grade 

Number 

Interval 

2 

35.9 

2.4 

3 

33.3 

1.6 

4 

39.9 

M 

5 

41.8  i 

1.6 

6 

7 

43.4 

1.9 

4 5*  3 

2.0 

8 

47.3  ! 

* 

Grades  \ [ j~  ; | 

*p\|  S-6  \ ~ 6 \7  ! t{& 


figure  5 

Grade  Jr  ferya/s  /?efwee/7 
Judex  A/uru6er& 

X-rc.  - Xyses-  7&<2cX>e/'S  e<?//£’&& 
r.  C.  = 7r&ac/7&S‘j  eb//&  <y& 


of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  more  nearly  indicate  the  direction  that  the 
intervals  should  take.  There  is  more  chance  distribution  of  the  difficulty  of 
the  words  that  are  common  to  the  books  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  List  be- 
cause  this  list  contains  a relatively  larger  number  than  the  Teachers  College 
List  alone  of  the  words  that  are  in  the  books  for  the  purposes  of  sentence  con- 
struction. This  makes  it  difficult  to  grade  the  difficulty  of  the  words.  One  con- 
cludes that  the  words  that  are  common  to  the  books  and  to  the  Teachers  Collage 
List  are  easier  to  grade  for  difficulty.  Hence  the  conclusion  that  these  words 
should  more  nearly  follow  the  ability  of  the  pupils  and  the  demands  of  society, 
provided  the  makers  of  the  texts  tried  to  meet  these  demands. 

As  a standard  for  the  spelling  ability  intervals  we  shall  use  the  data 
derived  by  Buckingham."  The  grade  intervals  that  he  reported  were  converted  into 
the  same  units  that  we  are  using  throughout  this  study.  Table  XVII  gives  the 
results  of  the  conversion, 

TABLE  XVII 

GRADE  INTERVALS  AFTER  BUCKINGHAM 


Grades 

Intervals 

Grades 

Intervals 

2-3 

15.4 

5-6 

7.1 

3-4 

9.1 

6-7 

4.4 

4-5 

5*  7 

7-8 

6.2 

The  table  reads:  The  interval  from  the  median 

of  Grade  2 to  the  median  of  Grade  3 is  15 A;  the 
interval  between  the  median  of  Grade  3 and  the 
median  of  Grade  4 is  9.1;  etc. 

These  data  show  that  in  general  there  is  a decided  tendency  for  the 
intervals  between  median  grade  spelling  ability  to  decrease  with  the  advancing 


_ Buckingham,  B.R.  Spelling  ability:  its  distribution  and  measurement. 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University , 1913,  *— ——  — — 


grades.  The  exceptions  are  found  in  the  intervals  between  Grades  5 and  6,  and 

7 and  8. 

Figure  6 makes  it  easy  to  compare  the  median  spelling  ability  intervale 
as  shown  in  this  table  and  the  median  grade  difficulty  intervals  as  determined 
on  the  basis  of  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  to  the  Ay  res -Teachers  College 
List  and  to  the  Teachers  College  List  alone. 

The  curve  for  the  ability  intervals  shows  quite  clearly  a decrease  in 
their  size  between  the  advancing  grades.  The  curve  for  the  difficulty  intervals 
based  on  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  to  the  Teachers  College  words  alone 
shows  a generally  uniform  level  of  difficulty  interval.  The  curve  for  the  diffi- 
culty intervals  based  on  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  the  Ayres-Teachers 
College  List  shows  a decrease  with  advancing  grades  somewhat  similar  to  the  curve 
for  the  ability  intervals  though  the  intervals  are  decidedly  smaller.  Since,  as 
we  indicated  in  a preceding  paragraph,  the  laws  of  chance  selection  operate  more 
strongly  in  the  case  cf  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  the  Ayres-Teachers 
College  List  we  see  evidence  that  tends  to  show  that  the  laws  of  chance  operate 
more  strongly  in  selecting  words  that  meet  the  ability  intervals  than  does  the 
laws  of  design,  Tf  such  were  not  the  case  we  should  expect  that  the  curve  of 
difficulty  intervals  based  on  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  the  Teachers  Col-j 
lege  List  would  be  somewhat  similar,  but  our  data  show  them  to  be  quite  dissimi- 
lar. 

Another  line  of  evidence  leads  to  the  same  conclusion  that  the  laws  of 
chance  in  the  selection  of  the  words  on  the  basis  of  difficulty  operate  more 
strongly  than  does  design  on  the  part  of  the  authors  of  the  texts  that  are  used  Jj 
in  our  schools.  Society  demands  perfection  in  spoiling,  rather  than  median  per- 
formance. In  order  to  get  this  degree  of  perfection  the  difficulty  interval 
must  be  leas  and  less  between  the  advancing  grade  medians  for  the  words  and  the 
performance  must  approach  more  and  more  closely  to  perfection.  Therefore,  we 


79 


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expect  that  the  curve  for  the  difficulty  intervals  should  be  mere  similar  to  the 
curve  for  ability  intervals,  if  it  were  smoothed,  than  irregular  around  a gener- 
al level  as  in  the  case  of  the  curve  for  the  difficulty  intervals  based  on  the 
words  common  to  the  texts  and  the  Teachers  College  List,  That  is,  the  curve  of 
intervals  which  the  demands  of  society  compel  is  similar  to  the  curve  of  the 

intervals  based  on  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  Col- 
lege List,  The  graph  shows  clearly  that  such  is  not  the  case  with  the  curve  of 

intervals  based  on  the  words  common  to  the  texts  and  the  Teachers  College  List, 

Hence,  we  see  again  that  the  words  that  are  selected  more  by  chance  would  give 
results  that  more  nearly  meet  the  spelling  situation  in  our  elementary  schools-- 
a situation  which  is  made  complex  by  the  factor  of  the  social  demand  and  the 
factor  of  the  ability  of  the  pupils. 

Pi f f i cul tv  of  the  Books. 

Superintendents,  teachers,  and  others  who  may  be  concerned  with  either 
the  selection  of  the  texts  in  spelling  or  the  teaching  of  spelling  in  the  schools 
are  interested  in  how  difficult  a given  text  in  the  subject  may  be.  Before  the 
development  of  statistical  methods  cf  determining  the  difficulty  of  words  it  wras 
not  possible  to  give  a very  accurate  answer  to  the  inquiry  as  to  the  difficulty 
of  a given  text  in  spelling.  But  new  we  are  able  to  measure  the  difficulty  of 
the  spellers  with  the  same  degree  of  accuracy  that  we  are  able  to  measure  the 
spelling  ability  of  the  children  in  our  schools.  In  a sense  we  are  able  to 
measure  more  accurately  the  spelling  books  than  we  are  able  to  measure  the  spell Jj 

f 

ing  ability  of  the  children,  because  of  so  many  chances  for  the  children  not  to  ! 
give  their  true  ability  index  in  a given  test  or  a given  series  of  tests.  The 
children  are  complex  and  varying  while  the  textbook  while  not  simple  is  at  least 
stable  in  its  content.  The  chief  difficulty  at  present  in  the  way  of  measuring 
the  textbook  is  that  w'e  do  not  know  the  difficulty  of  every  word  in  the  texts. 
Recognizing  the  obstacles  mentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  we 


- 81 


have  undertaken  the  task  of  expressing  the  difficulty  of  each  of  the  ten  spellers 
on  our  list  in  terras  of  a single  figure.  Our  index  figure  has  been  determined 
from  distributions  of  words  whose  difficulty  has  been  carefully  derived  by  compet- 
ent investigators  in  the  field  of  spelling.  The  first  index  figures  that  we  de- 
rived were  obtained  by  adding  the  difficulty  distribution  tables  in  each  grade  in 
a given  book  to  find  the  total  difficulty  distribution  table  for  the  book.  Then 
uh e median  difficulty  for  each  book  was  calculated  and  this  gave  the  index  for 
that  book  on  this  basis.  The  Ayras-Tsachers  College  words  common  to  each  grade 
formed  the  basis  of  the  difficulty  figures.  Table  XVIII  gives  the  results  for 
this  method. 

TABLE  XVIII 

MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  OF  EACH  BOOK.  FIRST  METHOD. 


Book 

Index 
Numb  er 

Book 

Index 

Number 

I 

35.4 

VI 

40.9 

II 

36.3 

VII 

38.7 

III 

36.7 

VIII 

38.4 

IV 

36.7 

IX  1 

1 

38.2 

V 

37<>  3 

X 

-1 

39.9 

The  easiest  book  according  to  these  index  numbers  is  Book  I and  the 
most  difficult  one  is  Book  VI,  The  easiest  book  is  as  easy  as  the  words  of  Col- 
umn M on  the  Ayres  Scale  for  Measuring  Spelling  Ability  and  the  most  difficult 
book  is  as  difficult  as  Column  P on  the  same  scale.  In  terms  of  grade  ability 
Book  I has  a median  difficulty  equivalent  to  approximately  half  way  between  Grade 
3 and  Grade  4,  while  Book  VI  has  a difficulty  slightly  above  the  median  ability 
of  Grade  4.  The  reader  should  not  forget  in  making  the  comparisons  that  we  are 
dealing  with  medians  in  both  the  difficulty  of  words  and  in  the  spelling  ability 
of  the  children. 


j 


- 82  - 


The  index  numbers  that  have  been  given  were  calculated  in  such  a way 
that  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  the  different  grades  were  taken  into  consider- 
ation. This  method  of  calculation  gave  extra  weight  to  the  words  that  were  re- 
peated more  frequently  from  grade  to  grade.  In  order  to  place  the  words  on  a more 
nearly  equal  footing  in  this  regard,  .it  was  decided  to  calculate  the  median  diffi- 
culty of  each  book  from  the  distribution  of  the  Ayres -Teachers  College  words  after 
all  the  words  in  a book  had  been  alphabetized  and  duplicates  had  been  eliminated. 
This  method  does  away  with  the  extra  weight  that  was  given  to  the  words  that 
crossed  grade  lines  in  the  preceding  method  of  calculation.  The  median  difficulty 
obtained  on  the  entire  distribution  of  the  Ay  res -Teachers  College  words  is  given 
in  Table  XIX, 


TABLE  XIX 

MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  OF  EACH  BOOK,  SECOND  METHOD. 


pr— 

Book 

Index 

Number 

Bo©k 

f"“  — 

Index 
Numb  er 

I 

39.7 

VI 

41.3 

II 

40. 2 

VII 

40.4 

j 

j III 

40.7 

VIII 

40.4 

IV 

4©,  6 

XX 

40.3 

V 

40.9 

— — — — — — 

X 1 

40.5 

According  to  these  index  numbers  Book  I is  again  the  easiest  and  Book 
VT  is  again  the  most  difficult.  But  it  will  be  observed  that  the  second  method 
gives  higher  index  numbers  than  the  former.  This  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  relatively  easy  words  cross  grade  lines  more  frequently  than  the  more 
difficult  words.  These  index  numbers  give  Book  I about  the  same  difficulty  as 
the  words  of  Column  0 on  the  Ayres  Measuring  Scale  for  Ability  in  Spelling,  while 
Book  VI  has  difficulty  a little  higher  than  the  words  of  Column  P on  the  same 
scale.  A comparison  with  the  median  grade  ability  as  computed  by  Buckingham 


shows  that  both  these  books  and  consequently  all  of  them  are  slightly  below  the 
median  ability  for  Grade  4. 

The  index  of  difficulty  was  computed  on  smother  slightly  different  ba- 
sis. This  was  done  in  order  that  a large  part  of  the  high  frequency  words  might 
be  omitted.  This  also  takes  out  of  consideration  many  of  the  relatively  easy 
words  that  are  used  because  of  the  necessity  of  making  sentences  in  those  books 
that  had  dictation  work  for  the  pupils.  Many  of  these  words  were  given  by  the 
authors  not  because  they  were  words  offering  spelling  difficulty  but  because  they 
had  to  be  used  to  make  sentences.  For  each  book  the  word  showing  was  the  number 
of  different  words,  without  duplicates,  common  to  the  book  and  to  the  Teachers 
College  list.  Table  XX  gives  the  index  numbers  for  the  entire  distribution 
found  by  using  these  words. 


TABLE  XX 

MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  OF  EACH  BOOK,  THIRD  METHOD 


Beck 

Index 
Numb er 

Book 

Index 

Number 

| 1 

42.3 

VI 

43.6 

f n 

42.3 

VII 

42.9  | 

III 

43.3 

VIII 

42.6 

IV 

42.9 

IX 

42.4 

V 

43.2  j 

X 

42.5 

Again  Book  I is  the  easiest  and  Book  VI  is  the  most  difficult.  It 
will  also  be  seen  that  these  index  numbers  are  higher  than  the  two  preceding. 

In  comparison  with  the  Ayres  Scale,  Book  I stands  about  half  way  between  Columns  j 
P and  Q,  while  Book  VI  stands  slightly  above  Column  Q.  In  comparison  with  the  j 
Buckingham  median  grade  ability,  all  of  the  books  are  above  the  median  ability 
of  Grade  4,  and  Book  VI,  the  most  difficult  one,  stands  about  half  way  between 
the  median  grade  ability  of  Grades  4 and  5* 

So  far  as  index  numbers  for  the  books  are  concerned,  we  are  not  able 


- 84  - 


to  say  which  book  has  the  optimum  one.  We  do  not  know  what  should  be  the  index 

number  in  an  absolute  sense.  But  by  reasoning  we  can  arrive  at  an  approximation. 

If  a given  book  ia  to  be  used  by  children  from  Grade  2 to  8 inclusive,  we  can 
take  the  middle  grade  and  say  that  the  book  should  have  a difficulty  index  that 
approximates  the  ability  index  for  that  grade.  Applying  this  standard,  we  find 
that  none  of  the  books  is  up  to  the  standard.  All  are  too  easy,  because  none 

i eacnos  46.6  which  is  the  median  ability  for  Grade  5*  Here  we  are  compelled  to 

recognize  that  the  social  standard  for  spelling  is  perfection  rather  than  median 
p erf orman ce. 

C^n£ura_s^n_0j:_y2^_^^0jis. _on  the  basis  of  dif ficulty « — -It  is  possible  to 
compare  the  spelling  books  on  the  basis  of  difficulty.  In  order  to  do  so  certain 
assumptions  will  be  made.  First,  we  shall  assume  the  median  grade  abilities  as 
defined  by  Buckingham?  are  substantially  correct.  Second,  we  shall  assume  that 
the  medians  computed  by  us  from  the  distributions  of  the  Teachers  College  words 
in  the  grades  are  the  most  nearly  true  medians  for  all  the  different  words  that 
are  in  the  different  books.  This  assumption  is  based  (a)  on  the  fact  that  the 
medians  computea  on  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  are  lower  than  the  grade 
medians  should  be  because  of  the  large  number  of  easy  high  frequency  words,  and 
(b)  on  the  fact  that  many  words  in  the  books  are  more  difficult  than  those  of 
our  last,  Honce  the  chances  are  that  the  medians  computed  on  these  words — i.e. 
the  Teachers  College  words  that  are  somewhere  between  the  relatively  easy  words 
fo'i  which  we  have  data  and  the  relatively  difficult  words  for  which  we  do  not 
have  data— give  a more  nearly  true  picture  of  the  difficulty  of  the  texts. 

Third, we  shall  assume  that  the  gap  between  the  spelling  ability  of  the 
pupils  in  the  grades  and  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  the  textbooks  for  the 
grades  is  too  wide.  Hence  the  grade  difficulty  of  all  these  books  should  approa- 
ch more  nearly  the  median  grade  ability  and  among  these  spellers  the  best  will 

7 ~ ’ ~ — — - — — 

Buckingham,  Ibid.  p.  61. 


be  the  one  whose  grade  difficulties  differ  in  general  from  these  median  grade 
abilities  by  the  smallest  amount.  We  are  safe  in  making  this  assumption  because 
none  of  the  books  approaches  very  closely  to  this  standard  except  in  Grade  4 
whore  the  two  medians  are  equal  for  all  practical  purposes. 

There  should  always  remain  at  least  in  the  higher  grades  a gap  between 
the  median  grade  ability  and  the  median  difficulty  of  the  words  designed  for  a 
given  grade--!. e.  pupil  ability  should  be  higher  than  word  difficulty.  This  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  society  demands  that  the  pupil  performance  should  be  per- 
fection rather  than  median  performance.  It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  a- 
bixity  factor  is  the  same  as  the  performance.  On  the  other  hand  in  the  lower 
grades  (perhaps  Grades  2 and  3)  the  pupil  ability  should  fall  below  word  diffi- 
culty because  the  children  in  these  grades  have  been  taught  comparatively  no  worth 
before  this  time. 

If  at  this  point  the  reader  will  refer  to  Table  XIV  he  will  have  before 
him  the  best  determination  we  can  offer  of  the  difficulty  of  the  material  pre- 
sented in  each  grade  for  each  book.  A summary  of  the  details  of  Table  XIV  yields 
for  each  grade  (all  books  combined)  a difficulty  figure.  This  figure  represents 
as  nearly  as  our  data  permit,  the  current  practice  of  textbook  writers  with  re- 
spect to  grade  difficulty.  This  summary  may  now  be  brought  into  relation  with 
the  ability  of  the  pupils  in  these  grades.  Table  XX-A  dees  this.  The  first  col- 
umn of  this  table  is  taken  directly  from  the  second  column  of  Table  XVI.  The 
entries  in  the  second  column  are  the  figures  of  grade  ability  derived  from 

p 

Bu  ck  ingham . 

Figure  7 shows  the  same  data  as  does  Table  XX-A.  The  full  line  re- 
presents the  average  difficulty  of  the  spellers  by  grades  (column  2 of  Table  XX- 
A)  the  dashed  line  represents  pupil  ability  by  grades  (Column  3 Table  XX-A). 

Q " ' ' 111  ’ " “ " 

Buckingham,  Tbid  p.  61, 


«t j,  V I 


. •• 


l . . J 1 * 


n • 


'<■  ' . . .> 


•> 

; . 


: ,u  : •:  -:j.J . 

• v . 

. : . . \ . ■ : . 

. . r 

■ V 


' 


- 86  - 


In  addition  to  these  curves  we  have  inserted  a third  ere  which  is  entirely  theo- 
retical. It  is  the  curve  which  lies  between  the  difficulty  and  ability  curves. 
This  curve  represents  our  judgment  of  a better  adjustment  of  grade  offerings  to 
pupil  ability  than  is  exhibited  by  any  of  the  spellers  as  a whole  that  we  have 
examined. 

We  are  not  disposed  to  defend  the  exact  position  of  our  theoretical 
curve  as  shown  in  Figure  7*  The  precise  placement  of  this  line  must  be  left  tc 
future  experiment.  We  submit,  however,  that  present  spellers  are  too  hard  in 
the  lower  grades  and  too  easy  in  the  upper  ones.  Some  sort  of  "in-between”  posi- 
tion must  therefore  be  taken  by  a curve  which  would  represent  better  conditions. 

However,  in  order  that  our  theoretical  curve  might  not  be  wholly  sub- 
jective cn  our  part,  we  located  it  on  the  basis  of  actual  practice  as  found  in 
our  ten  spellers.  For  example,  the  position  of  the  curve  for  Grade  2 is  the 
grade  difficulty  taken  from  that  speller  in  which  the  difficulty  of  Grade  2 has 
the  least  discrepancy  from  the  corresponding  grade  ability  as  determined  by 
Buckingham, 

It  will  be  noted  that  according  to  Figure  7 the  ability  of  Grade  2 
lies  below  the  median  difficulty  of  the  Teachers  College  words.  This  is  to  be 
expected  because  the  children  of  this  grade  have  learned  very  few  words  up  to 
this  time  in  their  school  career.  A test  of  their  spelling  ability  would  show 
that  they  were  able  to  spell  only  vein-  few  words  and  that  these  words  were  very 
easy.  The  whole  field  of  spelling  is  ahead  of  them.  When  they  enter  the  next 
grade  they  will  have  learned  many  words  that  they  have  been  taught,  and  hence 
they  will  show  a much  higher  ability  in  spelling.  Figure  7 pictures  this  quite 
clearly.  When  the  pupils  enter  Grade  4 they  will  have  a median  spelling  ability 
that  approximates  the  median  difficulty  of  the  words  that  they  are  taught.  In 
the  succeeding  grades  the  median  ability  draws  farther  and  farther  away  from  the 
median  difficulty  of  the  words  that  they  are  being  taught. 


- 87  - 


TABLE  XX -A 

COMPARISON  OF  MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  WITH 
MEDIAN  PUPIL  ABILITY  BY  GRADES. 


Grade 

Difficulty 
(all  books 
combined) 

Ability  of 
Pupils  (af- 
ter Bucking- 
ham) 

Difficulty  - 
("Best”  prac- 
■ tice)a 

2 

35.9 

16.4 

34.4 

3 

38.3 

31.9 

37.1 

4 

39.9 

40.5 

40.9 

1 

5 

41.8 

46.6 

43.1 

6 , 

43.4 

53.7 

45.0 

7 1 

45.3 

58.1 

48, 9 \ 

8 

47,3 

64.3 

j, 

49.4 

a 

That  grade  difficulty  which  is  found  in  one  of  the 
ten  spellers  and  shows  the  least  discrepancy  from  the 
corresponding  grade  ability  (after  Buckingham). 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2 the  median  difficulty  of 

all  bocks  combined  is  35.9.  the  median  pupil  ability 
(after  Buckingham)  is  16,4,  and  the  "best”  practice 
shows  a grade  difficulty  of  34.4;  etc. 


: 


■ , 


- 88  - 


65 


60 


55 


s1/>////y 


50 


45 


40 

p5-§ 

S?^ 


zs 

2.0 

/5 

/O 


2?//y/4 /s/ty,7~A<?<?/-<?/7^a/ 


20/ff/cW/yj  7eac4&xs  Oa//<?y& 


///ore  7 

<Oo/77/OOS//e  Gro/c/e  <0/77/50/?)/ 

//7/?e/a //o/7  7o  7/eore7/oa/ 
0/77/00/7/  a/?//  Ora  o/e  r?////7y 

/}/>/////  &//&/-  /SvcA/Oy/ra/?? 


Grade 

4 


6 


7 


8 


- 89  - 

The  divergence  of  the  median  ability  from  the  median  difficulty  in  the 
advancing  grades  is  what  society  demands  as  a result  of  the  teaching  of  spelling* 
In  fact  society  demands  that  the  outcome  of  the  teaching  of  spelling  should  be 
perfection  rather  than  these  median  performances.  This  rigid  demand  goes  beyond 
the  capacity  of  the  pupils  end  causes  so  much  of  the  pains  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher  and  the  taught.  The  teachers  of  spelling  have  tc  resort  to  all  kinds  of 
devices  to  induce  the  pupils  to  stick  to  the  task  of  mastering  to  perfection  the 
words  that  are  presented  to  them.  From  the  standpoint  of  what  we  know  of  the 
distribution  of  the  ability  or  capacity  of  the  pupils  in  the  elementary  schools, 
v/6  feel  safe  in  assuming  that  the  words  are  too  easy  as  they  are  found  in  the 
American  textbooks  on  spelling.  The  pupils  feel  that  they  have  mastered  to  a de- 
gree of  perfection  that  fits  their  needs  of  life  the  words  that  are  presented  to 
them.  If  the  words  presented  more  real  difficulty  tc  the  pupils  they  would  study 
with  much  less  discomfort  the  spelling  that  was  assigned  to  them. 

We  do  net  wish  to  defend  the  exact  position  of  the  theoretical  diffi- 
culty line  in  Figure  7.  y/e  may  have  misplaced  it  many  units  for  each  grade.  We 
do  not  know.  The  placement  of  this  line  must  be  left  to  future  experimentation. 

With  the  idea  in  nind  that  for  each  grade  the  discrepancy  between  book 
difficulty  and  pupil  ability  (either  way ) should  be  considerably  less,  v/e  found 
for  Book  I the  difference  between  the  difficulty  of  its  second  grade  offerings 
and  the  ability  of  second  grade  children  to  spell,  then  we  found  a similar  differ- 
ence for  the  »hird  grade,  and  so  on  to  the  eighth  grade.  These  differences  were 
then  added,  giving  the  aggregate  amount  of  discrepancy  between  the  difficulty 
grade  by  grade  o f Book  I and  the  abilities  of  pupils  in  the  same  grades.  Similar 
aggregates  were  obtained  for  the  remaining  nine  books.  However,  in  practice  we 
excluced  the  showing  for  Grade  2 because  some  spellers  did  not  offer  material 
for  this  grade.  The  aggregate  discrepancy  and  the  rank  for  the  ten  spellers  are 

shown  in  Table  XXT  along  with  the  aggregate  discrepancy  for  the  speller  represents 
ed  by  our  theoretical  curve  in  Figure  7.  The  book  whose  total  of  differences 


■ 


» <.  n 


- . 

. 


. 


. 


t 


, 


< 


. . •; 
■: 


* 


- 90 


was  the  least  was  given  first  rank  or  a rank  of  1;  the  book  having 
least  total  was  ranked  2;  etc.  The  ranking  of  the  ten  spellers  is 

Table  XXI. 


TABLE  XXI 

RANK  OF  SPELLERS  BASED  ON  ADJUSTMENT 
TO  THE  ABILITY  OF  PUPILS 


Book 

Discrepancy 

from 

Buckingham 

grade 

ability 

Rank 

III 

46.1 

1 

VI 

47.2 

2 

VII 

47-7 

3 

X 

48.2 

4 

IV 

51.4 

5 

VIII 

52.7 

6 

V 

56.2 

7 

II 

56.3 

8 

I 

56.7 

9 

IX 

61.7 

10 

Theoretical 

book 

42.4 

next  to  th  e 
shown  in 


- 91  - 


CHAPTER  VI 
REPETITION  OF  WORDS 

Psychologists  who  have  investigated  the  laws  of  learning  involved  in 
acquiring  control  of  the  correct  spelling  of  words  are  generally  agreed  that  the 
dominant  type  is  habit-formation.  The  following  quotation  from  Starch1  is  typical 
of  their  conclusions: 

"Skill  in  sP?Ui”g  is  primarily  a matter  of  forming  associative  con- 
nections between  certain  arbitrary  symbols  arranged  for  the  most  part  in  arbitra- 
ry order.  Economy  in  the  learning  of  spelling  reduces  itself  to  this  question: 
Under  what  conditions  can  these  associations  be  made  most  quickly,  most  effec- 
tively and  most  permanently?  Of  the  four  laws  of  association,  frequency,  vivid- 
ness, primacy,  and  recency,  the  first  two  are  most  directly  applicable.  Obviously, 
frequent  repetition  is  necessary  to  establish  the  connections.  Frequent  reviews', 
monthly,  weekly,  and  possibly  daily  are  indispensable." 

Students  of  the  pedagogy  of  spelling  have  reached  the  same  general 
conclusion  that  learning  to  spell  is  chiefly  habit-formation.  The  following 
statement  by  Tidyman2  is  typical: 

of  "TS?ei^nS’  ®S  have  seen,  involves  the  association  of  mental  images 

. ords.  Learning  of  this  kind,  which  has  in  it  less  of  thought,  variety  of 
content,  and  originality,  and  more  of  the  repetition  of  certain  set  forms^r 

15  leanring  ofvthe  habit-formation  type.  It  consists  primarily  of  the 
a sociation  of  certain  arbitrary  symbols,  and  then  of  practice  in  making  these 

Sf>2iihUBiil*th?y  ^ be.made  aut°ffiatically,  or  -without  thinking-  aboSt  them. 

The  emphasis  m learning  is  upon  exercise  and  effect.  The  principles  for  the 

formation  of  habit  are  vivid  picturing,  attentive  repetition,  and  automUc  e.n- 
trol.  These  principles  represent  also  the  steps  or  stages  of  learning." 

Both  of  the  quotations  call  attention  to  the  two  primary  laws  of  habit- 
formation  which  are  exercise  and  effect.  The  law  of  effect  is  concerned  with  the 
vividness  with  which  the  picture  of  the  word  is  presented  to  the  learners.  The 
word  may  be  written  on  the  blackboard,  underlined  in  the  speller,  printed  in 


Starch,  Daniel.  Educational  Psychology,  p.  343. 

2 

Tidyman,  W.  F.  The  teaching  of  spelling,  p.  36. 


j 


92  - 


bold  face  type  when  first  presented,  analyzed  into  stem  and  prefix  or  suffix. 

In  short,  a countless  number  of  devices  are  found  in  modern  spellers  and  are  used 
by  the  present  day  classroom  teacher.  We  investigated  certain  phases  of  presen- 
tation in  the  spellers  designed  to  assist  the  teacher  in  making  the  words  vivid, 
and  our  report  will  be  found  in  a later  chapter. 

The  law  of  exercise  functions  in  many  ways  in  spelling.  The  child  in 
studying  a word  repeats  the  letters  in  order,  time  and  time  again,  orally  and 
in  writing.  The  classroom  teacher  requires  the  children  to  spell  the  words  oral- 
ly and  in  writing  both  in  columns  and  dictation.  All  this  is  done  to  insure  the 
amount  of  exercise  or  repetition  that  is  required  to  make  the  correct  spelling 
automatic.  Some  spellers  provide  for  repetition  of  words  by  daily,  weekly, 
monthly,  half-yearly  and  yearly  reviews.  For  example,  some  spellers  use  every 
fifth  lesson  as  a review  by  printing  again  the  words  in  the  four  preceding  les- 
sons; other  spellers  at  regular  lesson  intervals  direct  the  pupils  to  review 
certain  preceding  lessons;  still  others  print  the  review  words  under  such  captions 
as,  "Spelling  Match"  or  "Review  Words";  or  again,  they  may  provide  for  review  by 
reprinting  tne  words  through  a series  of  lessons  for  one  or  more  grades.  All  of 
these  devices  aim,  among  other  things,  to  insure  repetition  until  correct  spell- 
ing has  become  automatic. 

Owing  to  the  recognized  importance  of  the  repetition  of  words  by  psychol- 
ogists, by  writers  on  the  pedagogy  of  spelling,  by  the  practice  of  better  teach- 
ers, and  by  the  authors  of  spellers  we  decided  to  investigate  certain  of  the 
provisions  for  this  phase  of  spelling  as  exhibited  in  the  ten  spellers  used  in 
our  study.  Among  the  more  important  phases  of  repetition  investigated  were  (1) 
the  average  number  of  occurrences  per  word  in  the  entire  vocabulary  of  each  spell- 
er; (2)  the  average  number  of  occurrences  per  word  in  each  grade  and  in  each 
speller;  (3)  the  repetition  of  the  Ayres- Teachers  College  words  common  to  each 
grade;  (4)  the  extent  of  repetition  across  grade  lines;  (5)  the  correlation 


-93- 

between  repetition  and  difficulty  of  words;  and  (6)  the  correlation  between 
repetition  of  words  in  spellers  and  in  life. 


The  average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  is  shown  in  Table  XXII. 

TABLE  XXII 

NUMBER  OF  WORDS,  NUMBER  OF  OCCURRENCES,  AND  AVERAGE  OCCURRENCES  PER  'WORD 


Book 

Number 
of  dif- 
ferent 
words 

Total 
number 
of  occur- 
rences 

Average 
number 
of  occur- 
rences 
per  word 

Book 

Number 
of  dif- 
ferent 
words 

Total 
number 
of  occur- 
rences 

Average 
number 
of  occur- 
rences 
per  word 

I 

3968 

15509 

3.9 

VI 

5328 

16624 

3.1 

II 

5001 

11594 

2.2 

VII 

4545 

10211 

2.3 

III 

4787 

19523 

4.1 

VIII 

4767 

16034 

3.4 

IV 

4742 

12775 

2.7 

IX 

5915 

11121 

1.9 

V 

5911 

16942 

2.9 

X 

4159 

5896 

1.4 

gable  reads:  In  Book  I there  are  3968  different  words  occurring  15509 

times  or  an  average  number  of  occurrences  per  word  of  3.9  times,  etc. 

The  table  shows  that  some  spellers  provide  for  a relatively  high  number  of  repe- 
titions per  word  while  others  provide  for  very  little.  The  range  in  average 
number  of  repetitions  is  from  4.1  in  Book  III  to  1.4  in  Book  X.  The  variation 
in  the  construction  of  spellers  from  the  standpoint  of  repetition  is  shown  sharp- 
ly by  comparing  the  average  repetition  per  word  for  Book  X which  has  1.4  with 
that  of  Book  VI  which  has  3.1.  These  books  are  practically  free  from  dictation 
material  and  the  comparisons  are  direct. 

It  was  suggested  that  dictation  material  influences  the  average  num- 
ber of  repetitions  per  word  and  one  would  be  inclined  to  say,  "The  more  dictation, 
the  more  repetition";  however,  Book  II,  having  next  to  the  largest  percent  of 
dictation,  has  an  average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  of  2.2  while  Book  IX, 
having  tne  least  percent  of  dictation,  has  an  average  number  of  repetitions  per 
word  of  1.9.  However,  Book  III  which  has  the  greatest  average  number  of  repeti- 
tions per  word  has  also  the  greatest  proportionate  amount  of  dictation. 

Date  of  publication  has  no  influence  on  the  average  repetitions  per 


- 94  - 


word  as  may  be  seen  by  comparing  Books  I and  X.  These  spellers  are  the  most 
recently  published  of  the  ten  in  our  list,  we  find  that  Book  I has  3.9  average 
repetitions,  which  is  next  to  the  highest*  while  Book  X has  1.4  average  repeti- 
tions per  word,  which  is  the  lowest  of  our  ten  spellers. 

It  is  obvious  that  Book  X is  in  a class  by  itself  when  we  compare  it 

with  Books  I and  VI.  The  size  of  the  vocabularies  in  Books  I and  X is  about 

the  same.  However,  when  we  compare  the  total  number  of  occurrences  (i.  e.,  the 
number  of  printed  words)  we  observe  that  Book  I has  approximately  three  times 
as  many  printed  words  as  Book  X.  This  means,  of  course,  that  the  words  in  Book 
I are  repeated  nearly  three  times  as  often  as  the  words  in  Book  X.  The  explana- 
tion for  part  of  this  difference  is  due  to  the  absence  of  dictation  material  in 

Book  X.  A comparison  of  Books  VI  and  X will  aid  further  in  showing  that  Book  X 

is  unique.  In  the  first  place,  both  of  the  spellers  are  practically  free  from 
dictation  material;  and  in  the  second  place,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  Book  VI 
has  1100  more  words  in  its  vocabulary,  it  has  nearly  three  times  as  many  printed 
words  as  Book  X.  That  is,  the  difference  of  1100  words  in  the  vocabularies  of 
the  two  spellers  accounts  only  in  part  for  the  wide  difference  in  the  number  of 
printed  words  in  the  two  spellers.  Therefore,  Book  X is  unique  in  that  it  has  a 
small  vocabulary,  a small  number  of  printed  words,  and  very  few  words  are  re- 
peated. 

Average  Number  of  Repetitions  of  All  Words  by  Grades 
In  the  preceding  section  we  showed  the  average  number  of  repetitions 
per  word  for  all  words  using  the  whole  book  as  a unit.  This  gave  a general  pic- 
ture of  the  spellers.  In  order  that  we  might  get  a detailed  impression  of  the 
repetition  per  word  in  each  grade,  we  divided  the  number  of  printed  words  in  each 
grade  by  the  number  of  different  words  in  the  grade.  This  gave  the  average  num- 
ber of  repetitions  per  word,  when  this  was  done  for  all  the  grades  in  all  the 
books,  we  derived  Table  XXIII. 


-I 


96 


Grade 

Range 

2 

4.4 

3 

2.5 

4 

2.1 

5 

2.0 

6 

1.8 

7 

1.1 

8 

1.0 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2 the  range  be- 

tween the  highest  and  the  lowest 
average  number  of  repetitions  per 
word  in  the  ten  spellers  is  4.4 
repetitions;  etc. 

yhile  these  ranges  in  the  average  repetitions  per  word  appear  small, 
yet  they  are  significant.  For  example,  if  a speller  has  a vocabulary  of  4000 
words,  none  of  which  is  repeated  * it  will  have  only  4000  printed  words.  If, 
however,  it  has  an  average  of  one  repetition  per  word,  it  will  have  8000  printed 


In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  noted  that  in  general  there  is  a tendency 
for  the  average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  to  decrease  with  advancing  grades. 
Especially  is  this  observable  in  the  spellers  that  have  relatively  high  repeti- 
tion in  the  earlier  grades.  For  example,  Book  I has  an  average  of  4.1  repetitions 
per  word  in  Grade  2 which  becomes  less  with  advancing  grades  until  in  Grade  8 the 
average  is  1.4.  In  the  second  place,  it  will  be  seen  that  in  the  upper  grades, 
e.  g.  Grade  8,  the  spellers  uniformly  provide  for  very  little  repetition  of  the 
words  by  printing  them.  The  high  frequency  in  the  lower  grades  indicates  that 
the  authors  made  provision  for  habit-formation  in  these  grades. 

The  range  in  average  repetitions  per  word  for  all  words  is  shown  in 
Table  XXIII-A  which  was  derived  directly  from  Table  XXIII. 

TABLE  XXIII-A 

RANGE  IN  AVERAGE  REPETITIONS  PER  WORD 
FOR  ALL  WORDS 


words;  or  if  it  has  an  average  of  two  repetitions  per  word,  it  will  have  12000 
printed  words.  Regardless  of  the  fact  that  these  ranges  in  average  repetitions 
seem  small,  they  are,  however,  significant  when  we  consider  them  in  relation  to 
the  size  of  the  entire  vocabulary  of  a speller. 

There  is  a level  of  uniformity  in  the  average  repetitions  in  Books  V, 
VI,  IX,  and  X.  The  latter  speller , as  will  be  noted  by  following  through  the 
grades,  provides  for  practically  no  repetitions  of  words.  The  words  are  printed 
once  and  seldom  or  never  again  in  the  speller,  indeed,  so  seldom  is  a word  re- 
peated that  we  feel  confident  that  the  repetitions  are  inadvertent.  Only  in 
Grade  3 where  dictation  material  is  provided  do  the  repetitions  rise  to  a point 
comparable  with  those  of  other  spellers. 

There  is  a certain  type  of  provision  for  review  used  in  some  of  the 
spellers  that  should  be  considered  in  this  connection.  Instead  of  reprinting 
tne  words,  the  autnor  directs  the  pupils  to  study  for  a given  review  lesson 
certain  specified  previous  lessons,  e.  g.,  the  review  lesson  is  headed  "Review 
Lessons  15—20."  In  our  study  of  repetitions  of  words  we  made  no  provision  for 
such  devices.  We  admit  that  this  is  a type  of  review,  but  would  it  not  have  a 
better  influence  on  the  mind  of  the  learner  if  he  were  not  told  to  "turn  back" 
aad  go  over  something  he  has  studied  before?  Students  of  child  life  have  ob- 
served that  pupils  are  averse  to  the  dictum  "Turn  back!"  in  their  school  work, 
f’/e  fancy  that  the  better  procedure  would  be  to  reprint  the  words  as  they  need 
review. 

One  measure  of  the  relative  worth  of  a speller  is  the  number  of  repe- 
titions per  word.  Within  reasonable  limits,  and  other  things  being  equal,  the 
speller  having  the  highest  number  of  repetitions  per  word  through  the  several 
grades  should  be  considered  the  best  speller.  On  this  premise,  the  spellers 
rank  as  follows:  first,  Book  I;  second,  Book  VI;  third,  Book  III;  fourth,  Book 
V;  fifth,  Book  IV;  sixth,  Book  VIII;  seventh,  Book  II;  eighth,  Book  VII;  ninth, 


. 


'7... 


• 

• 

- . 

•l 

. 

: 

. . ..  • 


■ v ... 

. 


•• 

i 

• 

. 

• 

. . ! 

* 

. 

. . 


• ‘ • ' ’ . ; . i ..  .■  . >1  J 1 i ■ 


....  ; - . ' t ; t -i  . : . j,  . ' ■■  ■ 

I • 


...  . . . • : ; 

■ 


TABLE  XXIV 

AVERAGE  NUMBER  OF  REPETITIONS  PER  WORD 
FOR  THE  AYRES-TEACHERS  COLLEGE  WORDS  IN  EACH  GRADE 


Grade 

Book 

ammm  '■ 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

4.6 

2.1 

5-7 

2.5 

(a) 

(a) 

2.5 

4.1 

(a) 

1.2 

3 

4.1 

2.3 

3.8 

2.0 

1.8 

2.1 

2.1 

3.1 

1.9 

1.1 

4 

3-7 

2.1 

3.5 

1.7 

2.3 

2.4 

1.8 

1.9 

1.6 

1.1 

5 

3.3 

1.8 

3.5 

1.5 

2.3 

2.3 

1.8 

1.7 

1.5 

1.0 

6 

3.1 

1.7 

3.1 

1.4 

2.2 

2.2 

1.4 

1.6 

1.4 

1.0 

7 

1.9 

1.8 

1.7 

1.4 

2.0 

2.3 

1.4 

1 . 6 

1.4 

1.0 

8 

1.6 

1.7 

1.1 

1.4 

2.2 

2.2 

1.3 

1.6 

1.3 

1.7 

(a) 


These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 


Table  reads;  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  the  average  frequency  of  occur- 
rence of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  coumon  to  the  textbook 
is  4.6;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I,  the  average  frequency  of  occurrence 
of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  coiamon  to  the  textbook  is 
4.1;  etc. 


\ 


99  - 


Book  IX;  and  tenth,  Book  X. 

Average  Repetitions  o_f  Ayres-Teachers  College  Words 
In  the  preceding  discussion  we  were  concerned  with  the  average  number 
of  repetitions  per  word  of  all  the  different  words  in  the  vocabulary  of  each  grade 
in  each  book.  However,  if  the  authors  of  the  spellers  were  consciously  providing 
for  repetition  of  words,  one  is  inclined  to  think  that  the  "most  frequently  used 
words"  would  be  repeated  more  than  all  words  in  general.  Two  causes  would  tend 
to  bring  about  more  frequent  repetition  of  these  words.  First,  their  widespread 
popularization  by  means  of  the  Ayres  scale  for  measuring  spelling  ability  and  by 
the  well-known  results  of  the  investigations  of  Cook  and  O'Shea,  Eldridge,  and 
others  have  brought  them  sharply  to  the  attention  of  authors  of  spelling  books. 

For  some  six  or  more  years  these  words  have  not  been  a hidden  secret  in  the 
science  of  education.  In  the  second  place,  the  spellers  having  dictation  mater- 
ial would,  by  force  of  the  necessity  of  sentence  forming,  if  for  no  other  reasons, 
have  a greater  average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  for  the  "most  frequently 
used"  words  than  would  otherwise  obtain. 

Therefore,  we  decided  to  find  the  average  number  of  repetitions  per 
word  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  "most  frequently  used  words"  that  are  found 
in  the  various  grades  of  the  different  spellers  used  in  our  study.  The  data  so 
derived  are  shown  in  Table  XXIV. 

In  °9neral  we  status  for  the  average  number  of  repeti- 

tions per  word  for  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  common  to  the  vocabularies 
of  the  grades  as  we  did  for  all  the  words  in  the  grades.  That  is,  there  is  a 
larger  average  number  of  repetitions  per  word  in  the  earlier  grades  than  in  the 
later  grades.  Again  there  is  variation  in  the  practice  of  the  different  authors- 
some  having  a relatively  high  average  in  a given  grade  and  others  a relatively 

low  average  excepting  in  the  upper  grades  where  the  average  is  about  the  same  in 
all  the  spellers. 

A careful  comparison  of  the  averages  for  the  two  sets  will  disclose 

J 


- 100  - 


that  in  general  the  averages  obtained  on  the  basis  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  College 
words  common  to  the  grades  are  slightly  higher  than  the  averages  derived  on  the 
basis  of  all  the  words  in  the  grades.  The  exceptions  are  Books  IV  and  X.  In 
Book  IV,  Grades  2,  3,  4,  5>  and  6,  the  averages  based  on  the  Ayres-Teachers  Col- 
lege words  are  slightly  lower  than  the  averages  based  on  all  words  and  in  Grade 
7 the  two  averages  are  the  same.  In  Book  X the  two  sets  of  averages  are  identical 
in  four  of  the  grades.  Wo  recognize  that  it  is  precarious  to  attempt  to  draw 
any  conclusions  on  the  basis  of  such  slight  differences,  but  the  data  show  that 
Books  IV  and  X are  deficient  in  that  they  do  not  provide  an  appreciably  higher 
average  number  of  repetitions  of  the  "most  frequently  used  words." 

Repetition  of  Words  from  Grade  to  Grade 

It  is  a well-known  fact  that  words  in  general  present  spelling  diffi- 
culty in  more  than  one  grade.  We  are  compelled  to  teach  a given  word  to  the 
children  in  more  than  one  grade  in  order  that  they  may  learn  it  to  the  point  of 
automatic  reproduction.  Hence,  if  a speller  is  properly  constructed  to  take  care 
of  the  teaching  and  reteaching  of  the  words  in  its  vocabulary,  it  must  have  its 
words  appear  in  more  than  one  grade. 

It  would  be  an  Herculean  task  to  trace  the  entire  vocabulary  of  a 
speller  through  the  different  grades,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  the  work  would 
be  simple  and  straightforward.  We  were  compelled  to  abandon  such  a task  because  j 
of  lack  of  clerical  help.  However,  we  derived  a quantitative  expression  for  this  j 
repetition  from  grade  to  grade  by  calculations  on  data  derived  chiefly  for  anoth- 
er purpose*  Table  XXV  shows  the  original  data  and  the  calculations  made  in  de- 
riving a general  quantitative  expression  for  the  extent  to  which  the  words  in 
the  vocabulary  of  a given  speller  appears  in  more  than  one  grade  in  the  same 
speller. 

Owing  to  the  difficulty  of  understanding  the  term  "grade  appearance" 
we  shall  give  an  illustration.  Suppose  that  in  Book  IV  the 


word  "built"  appears 


■ v 


j 


; o • j. 


• 


. 


'i  . ■, 

. 


• •. 


• . i 

i?  r nl  J 


- - 


'i  : 


... 


* 

■ .. . ; J ; . 


. J ...  j ■ .-j. 

. 


. . : 


...  .. 


> i, : 


• • •*  : 


101  - 


TABLE  XXV 

REPETITION  OF  WORDS  FROM  GRADE  TO  GRADE 


Numbei 

differenl 

• of 
b words 

Grade  appear ance^^ 

Book 

Gross^ 

Net 

Amount^ 

Per cent ( c) 

1 

2 

3 

4 

I 

5865  , 

3968 

1897 

47.8 

II 

7052 

5001 

2051 

43.0 

III 

7398 

4787 

2611 

54.5 

IV 

7054 

4742 

2312 

48.8 

V 

9549 

5911 

3638 

61.6 

VI 

7731 

5328 

2403 

45.1 

VII 

6654 

4545 

2109 

46.4 

VIII 

9119 

4767 

4352 

91.3 

IX 

8300 

5915 

2385 

40.4 

X 

5221 

4159 

1062 

25.5 

{ g ^ 

Entry  for  each  book  obtained  by  adding  the  number 
of  different  words  in  each  grade. 

Entries  in  thi3  column  are  the  differences  between 
, . entries  in  Columns  1 and  2. 

'c'Entries  in  this  column  calculated  from  Columns  2 
/ , \ fiuid  3 • 

"Grade  appearance"  indicates  that  a word  is  found 
in  a grade  regardless  of  the  number  of  times  it 
appears  in  a grade  after  the  first  appearance. 

~^19o?f°re ’ reads:  In  Book  I there  are 

5365  printed  words  and  3968  different  words  of 
which  1897  were  found  in  two  or  more  grades. 

This  comprised  47.8  percent  of  the  total  net 
vocabulary;  etc. 


♦ 


\ * •; 


- 102  - 


3 times  in  Grade  3,  6 times  in  Grade  4,  once  in  Grade  5,  and  once  in  Grade  6. 

In  this  case  we  would  say  that  the  word  "built”  made  4 "grade  appearances,"  but 
in  the  net  vocabulary  for  the  book  as  a whole  the  word  would  appear  only  once. 

But  in  Table  XXV  the  entry  in  column  3 would  be  only  3 because  one  of  the  4 ap- 
pearances is  found  in  column  2. 

The  significant  part  of  the  table  is  column  4 which  is  concerned  with 
the  percent  of  the  vocabulary  of  a speller  that  appears  in  two  or  more  grades. 
Book  X,  having  25*5  percent  of  its  vocabulary  appearing  in  two  or  more  grades, 
shows  the  least  repetition  from  grade  to  grade,  while  Book  VIII,  having  91.3 
percent  appearing  in  two  or  more  grades,  has  the  largest  repetition  from  grade  to 
grade.  This  discrepancy  is  wide  and  represents  well  the  fact  that  one  author  has 
constructed  his  speller  so  that  repetition  from  grade  to  grade  is  an  important 
factor  while  the  other  pays  little  attention  to  this  principle.  Approximately 
what  percent  of  the  vocabulary  of  a speller  should  appear  in  two  or  more  grades 
we  are  not  able  to  determine.  However,  if  it  is  safe  to  argue  from  general  prac- 
tice, we  should  say  that  25*5  percent  is  too  low  because  the  next  lowest  percent 
for  our  ten  spellers  is  40.4  for  Book  IX,  and  that  91*3  percent  is  too  high  be- 
cause the  next  highest  percent  is  61.6  for  Book  V.  However,  if  it  is  not  safe 
to  argue  from  general  practice,  we  may  conclude  that  both  25*5  percent  and  91.3 
percent  of  the  vocabulary  crossing  grade  lines  cannot  be  the  optimum  status. 

One  or  the  other  or  both  are  wrong  from  the  standpoint  of  pupil  needs  in  general. 

Since  there  is  a possibility  that  dictation  material  might  nullify  to 
a certain  extent  comparisons  between  a speller  having  this  form  of  presentation 
and  one  without  it,  this  difficulty  may  be  avoided  by  comparing  Books  VI  and  X 
both  of  which  have  practically  no  dictation.  Book  VI  has  45. 1 percent  of  its 
vocabulary  in  two  or  more  grades,  while  Book  X has  only  25.5  percent.  Or,  again, 
Book  VIII  has  next  to  the  lowest  percent  of  dictation  and  by  far  the  highest  per- 

£ 

cent  of  repetition  from  grade  to  grade.  This  indicates  that  there  is  no  very 


♦ 


- 103  - 


close  correlation  between  the  proportion  of  dictation  in  a speller  and  the  pro- 
portion of  the  vocabulary  in  the  speller  that  appears  in  two  or  more  grades* 
Therefore,  we  see  wide  range  in  regard  to  the  application  of  the  principle  of 
repetition. 

” Repetition  of  a Selected  List  of  Words 

Since,  as  we  indicated  before,  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  follow  the 
behavior  of  each  word  in  the  vocabulary  of  a given  speller  through  each  grade  in 
the  speller,  we  decided  to  make  this  study  for  a selected  list  of  words.  Because 
of  the  wide  popularity  enjoyed  by  Jones's  so-called  "one  hundred  demons,"  it 
seemed  likely  that  if  any  list  of  words  was  systematically  repeated  in  a grade 
and  in  several  grades  of  each  of  the  ten  spellers,  it  would  be  this  list.  On 
investigation  we  found  that  approximately  all  of  the  words  of  this  list  are  found 
in  all  of  our  spellers. 

For  purposee  of  comparing  the  repetition  of  these  words  with  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  6ame  words,  we  were  compelled  to  drop  ten  of  the  Jones's  "demons" 
and  substitute  in  their  stead  ten  other  words  from  the  Ayres  spelling  scale.  We 
took  the  most  frequent  word  from  each  of  the  last  nine  columns  and  from  one  col- 
umn we  took  two  words.  The  following  illustration  for  two  words  in  one  speller 
shows  how  the  data  were  tabulated: 


Word 

Grade 

Total 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 1 

blue 

8 

1 

4 

i 

3 

17 

country 

16 

1 

1 

1 

19 

That  is,  the  word  "blue"  in  this  speller  occurred  8 times  in  Grade  2,  once  in 
Grade  3,  4 times  in  Grade  4,  once  in  Grade  5,  3 times  in  Grade  6,  and  did  not 
appear  in  Grades  7 and  8.  Altogether  it  occurred  17  times  in  the  speller* 

In  order  that  we  might  obtain  a quantitative  expression  for  the 


» 


' 


'fa, 


C : ' 

4-"-  • 


■ . 4- 


' 


"x 


Y i1  : . 


v 1 ■; 

. • . 

" . 

; - •,  fc  O * t Off)  i'.;  , 


, l)  .... 


0 ’ ... 


. . i. 


, " 


i •>■■■■ 


■ ■ ..i 


■ . .; 


w . < 


Y 


- 104  - 


repetition  of  these  one  hundred  words,  we  determined  their  average  number  of  re- 
petitions in  each  of  the  spellers  in  our  study.  The  results  of  the  calculations 
are  shown  in  Table  XXVI. 


TABLE  XXVI 

AVERAGE  NUMBER  OF  OCCURRENCES  PER  WCRD 
FOR  SELECTED  LIST  OF  100 


Book 

Average 
number 
of  occur- 
rences 
per  word 

Book 

Average 
number 
of  occur- 
rences 
per  word 

I 

12.5 

VI 

7.3 

II 

6.8 

VII 

8.6 

III 

12.1 

VIII 

11.4 

IV 

8.8 

IX 

6.2 

V 

10.6 

jlJ 

2.5 

Table  reads;  In  Book  I the  average  num- 
ber of  occurrences  per  word  for  the  one 
hundred  words  is  12.5;  in  Book  II  the 
average  number  of  occurrences  for  the 
one  hundred  words  is  6.8;  etc. 

Book  I heads  the  list  of  spellers  in  the  average  number  of  occurrences 
of  these  well-known  and  popularly  assumed  one  hundred  "demons"  of  our  language.  ' 

Books  III  and  VIII  follow  closely  in  second  and  third  places.  The  lowest  speller  1 
in  the  list  is  Book  X which  provides  for  very  little  repetition  of  these  words. 
Book  VI  may  be  more  comparable  with  Book  X than  any  of  the  other  spellers  in  the 
list  because  neither  of  them  has  enough  dictation  material  to  influence  mater- 
ially the  repetition  of  the  words.  However,  we  find  that  Book  VI  has  on  the 

average  7.3  occurrences  per  word  while  Book  X has  only  2.5— but  little  more  than 
one-third  as  many. 

In  order  that  we  may  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the  detailed  appear- 
ances of  the  "demons"  in  the  grades  of  the  ten  spellers,  we  shall  present  in 

s 

Tables  XXVII,  XXVIII,  and  XXIX  the  behavior  of  three  of  these  words.  Lack  of 


- 104a 


TABLE  XXVII 

BEHAVIOR  OF  THE  EASY  WORD  "SOME" 


Book 

Grade 

Total 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

I 

12 

9 

6 

3 

3 

33 

II 

4 

4 

4 

3 

3 

18 

III 

11 

14 

8 

13 

6 

52 

IV 

11 

7 

3 

3 

1 

25 

V 

2 

1 

1 

6 

2 

4 

16 

VI 

4 

1 

5 

VII 

5 

3 

4 

3 

2 

2 

19 

VIII 

9 

9 

4 

2 

1 

1 

26 

IX 

3 

2 

1 

4 

1 

11 

X 

2 

1 

4 

7 

Table  reads:  In  Book  I "some”  appeared  in  Grade  2 twelve 

times;  in  Grade  3, nine  times;  in  Grade  4,  six  times; etc., 
making  a total  of  thirty-three  appearances  in  the  speller; 
etc. 


- 104b  - 


TABLE  XXVIII 

BEHAVIOR  OF  THE  MEDIAN  DIFFICULTY  WCRD  "WRITE" 


Book 

Grade 

Total 

2 

3 

[_!_ 

5 

6 

7 

8 

I 

11 

2 

i 

2 

16 

II 

3 

1 

2 

2 

8 

III 

2 

3 

2 

7 

IV 

2 

4 

2 

2 

1 

11 

V 

2 

2 

2 

1 

7 

VI 

7 

1 

8 

VII 

1 

2 

2 

3 

2 

10 

VIII 

3 

7 

1 

3 

1 

15 

IX 

7 

2 

1 

1 

ll 

x 

2 

1 

3 

reads:  In  Book  I "write”  appeared  in  Grade  3 

eleven  times;  in  Grade  4,  two  times;  in  Grade  5,  once; 
in  Grade  8,  two  times,  making  a total  of  sixteen  ap- 
pearances in  the  speller;  etc. 


•104c. 


TABLE  XXIX 

BEHAVIOR  OF  THE  DIFFICULT  WCRD  "SINCERELY" 


appearances  in  the  speller;  etc. 


- 105  - 

space  forbids  our  presenting  more  of  them,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  the  be- 


i 


havior  of  these  "demons"  provides  much  that  is  interesting. 

The  easy  word  "some"  (difficulty  26)  is  placed  by  all  the  ten  spellers 
in  the  lowest  grade  in  which  they  place  any  words.  In  general  the  word  is  re- 
peated many  times  in  each  grade  and  in  several  of  the  grades.  The  exceptions 
are  Books  VI  and  X.  The  range  in  total  occurrences  for  this  word  is  from  5 times 
in  Book  VI  to  52  times  in  Book  III.  The  large  amount  of  dictation  material  in 
Book  III  doubtless  accounts  for  its  high  frequency  for  that  book. 

The  word  "write"  which  is  a median  difficulty  word  (difficulty  37)  is 
placed  first  in  Grade  2 by  four  of  the  spellers  and  first  in  Grade  3 by  seven 
of  them.  It  is  found  in  more  than  one  grade  in  all  the  spellers.  The  range  in 
number  of  grades  found  is  from  two  to  five.  The  total  number  of  appearances  per 
speller  ranges  from  three  times  in  Book  X to  16  times  in  Book  I.  That  dictation 
material  has  little  influence  may  be  seen  by  comparing  Book  VI,  having  practical- 
ly no  dictation,  with  Book  III,  having  the  largest  percent  of  dictation.  The 
total  number  of  appearances  in  Book  VI  is  8 and  in  Book  III,  J. 

The  word  "sincerely"  which  is  a difficult  word  (difficulty  54)  has  a 
more  varied  experience  as  far  as  the  first  grade  introduction.  In  four  of  the 
spellers  it  appears  first  in  Grade  5;  in  two  of  the  spellers,  in  Grade  6;  in 

i 

three  of  the  spellers,  in  Grade  7;  and  in  one  speller  in  Grade  8.  The  total  num- 
ber of  appearances  in  the  spellers  ranges  from  once  in  Books  II,  IV,  and  IX  to 
six  times  in  Book  VII. 

I 

The  last  paragraph  indicates  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  word  "sincere- 
ly" is  difficult  to  spell,  that  is,  the  children  do  not  have  enough  experience 
with  the  word  in  their  spellers.  On  the  other  hand,  the  word  "some"  may  be 
easy  oe cause  the  children  have  relatively  many  more  experiences  with  it  in  their 
speller,  as  indicated  by  the  fact  that  one  speller  prints  it  52  times  while  the 
same  speller  prints  the  word  "sincerely"  only  4 times.  This  train  of  thoughts 

8 t0  the  furtller  thought  that  perhaps  many  of  our  difficult  words  for 

| 


. . . i • . j . .j  • . 


. . 


. 

. po  . .. 


.. 


.. 


* . ‘ • *'•  . V .. 


- 

. . . . ■ ■ ..  - 
. 


: -.v . 

. 

...  . l ....  y.  ...  i •.  .'....1  ifiBCSaBBM 


• -L  ' . 


. ..  .■  . .'  . . " . - - ' . '.-j*.  Wffj 

. ; . ; . .j  . ' . ..'  . •: 


. 


. . , . V . • • '.  . . 


..  t : J..! 


■ ■ i . i ...  « 


. . " •. 


: • ■» 


•.  . . . ...  .K-  . 

' 


■ ' . .»  “V  ■ -0  2 •-  *> 


. 


- 106  - 


children  are  difficult  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  they  do  not  appear  often  enough 
in  our  spellers.  The  children  do  not  have  enough  experiences  with  the  difficult 
words  to  learn  them.  This  brings  us  to  a consideration  of  the  question  of  the 
correlation  between  the  repetitions  in  the  spellers  and  the  difficulty  of  the 
words  in  the  spellers.  This  will  be  presented  in  the  following  sections. 

Correlation  Between  Repetition  and  Difficulty  of  Words 
At  the  close  of  the  preceding  section  we  suggested  that,  since  the  easy 
word  "some”  appeared  so  many  times  in  the  spellers  and  the  difficult  word  Sin- 
cerely" so  few  times,  perhaps  this  is  one  of  the  causes  why  our  school  children 
find  the  word  "some"  easy  to  spell  and  the  word  ’'sincerely'1  difficult  to  spell. 
That  is,  the  words  are  difficult  to  spell  because  in  part,  they  are  not  presented 
often  enough  for  the  pupils  to  learn  to  spell  them.  Strong  evidence  supporting 
this  position  would  be  obtained  if  we  should  find  upon  investigation  that  there 
is  a negative  correlation  or  no  correlation  between  the  repetition  and  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  words. 

We  were  not  able  to  make  the  preceding  study  for  all  the  words  in  the 
spellers,  because  we  do  not  at  present  know  the  difficulty  of  all  the  different 
words  of  the  vocabularies  of  the  ten  spellers.  We  were,  therefore,  limited  in 
the  scope  of  our  investigation  to  words  of  known  difficulty.  In  other  words,  we  j 
were  compelled  to  confine  our  study  to  the  words  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers 
College  list  of  "most  frequently  used  words”  and  to  the  spellers. 

When  the  vocabulary  for  each  speller  was  alphabetized  for  each  book  as 
a whole,  we  constructed  a correlation  table  for  the  frequency  of  occurrence  and 
for  the  difficulty  of  the  words  common  to  each  speller  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers 
College  list.  This  gave  us  data  for  approximately  2000  words  for  each  speller. 

The  values  for  r calculated  by  the  Pearson  product  moment  formula  are  shown  in 
Table  XXX. 


5 


- 107 


TABLE  XXX 

CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  REPETITION  AND  DIFFICULTY 
BASED  ON  WORDS  COMMON  TO  EACH  SPELLER  AND 
TO  THE  AYRES-TEACHERS  COLLEGE  LIST 


Book 

r 

Book 

r 

I 

- 0.26 

VI 

+ 0.20 

II 

- 0.29 

VII 

- 0.26 

III 

- 0.30 

VIII 

- 0.18 

IV 

- 0.32 

IX 

- 0.23 

[ V 

- 0.22 

X 

- 0.07 

Table  reads:  la  Book  I the  correlation  between 

the  repetition  of  the  words  common  to  it  and 
the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  and  the  dif- 
ficulty of  these  words  is  - 0.26;  in  Book  II 
the  correlation  between  the  repetition  of 
the  words  common  to  it  and  to  the  Ayres- 
Teachers  College  list  and  the  difficulty  of 
these  words  is  - 0.29;  etc. 

The  table  shows  that  there  is  an  appreciably  large  negative  correlation 
between  the  repetition  of  the  words  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  and 
to  the  spellers  and  the  difficulty  of  these  words.  The  two  exceptions  are  Books 
VI  and  X.  Book  X has  such  a small  negative  correlation  coefficient  that  we  may 
say  that  there  is  no  correlation  between  the  repetition  and  the  difficulty  of  the 
words  common  to  it  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list.  However,  for  Book  VI 
the  positive  correlation  is  about  as  large  as  the  negative  correlations  for  eight 
of  the  other  spellers. 

These  data  show  that  in  eight  of  the  spellers  the  easier  words  occur 
more  frequently  than  the  more  difficult  words.  Hence,  the  pupils  have  more  ex- 
perience with  the  easy  words  which  aids  in  keeping  them  easy  and  less  experience 
with  the  difficult  words  which  aids  in  keeping  them  difficult. 

In  studying  repetition  of  words  we  need  to  keep  in  mind  that  some  of 
the  words  in  the  English  language  are  needed  in  sentence  forming.  They  appear 
frequently  in  the  spellers  having  dictation  because  of  this  necessity.  We 


- 108  - 


excluded,  as  indicated  in  Chapter  II,  twenty- four  of  these  easy  words  which  con- 
stitute over  27  percent  of  running  correspondence  material.  This  makes  such 
sentence-forming  words  have  less  influence  on  our  coefficient  of  correlation 
between  repetition  and  difficulty.  Since  the  words  in  the  Ayres  component  occur 
more  frequently  than  the  words  in  the  Teachers  College  component,  the  chances  are 
favorable  for  the  Ayres  words  to  appear  more  frequently  than  the  Teachers  College 
words  in  the  spellers  having  dictation.  That  is,  Teachers  College  words,  it  woul< 
seem,  have  a better  chance  of  appearing  in  spellers  by  design  on  the  part  of  the 
authors  than  by  chance  sentence- forming  needs.  Therefore,  we  calculated  the  cor- 
relation between  repetition  and  difficulty  of  the  words  that  are  common  to  each 
speller  and  to  the  Teachers  College  list  of  "second  and  third  thousand  most  fre- 
quently used  words.”  The  values  of  £ obtained  from  these  sources  are  shown  in 
Table  XXXI. 

TABLE  XXXI 

CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  REPETITION  AND  DIFFICULTY 
BASED  ON  WORDS  COMMON  TO  EACH  SPELLER  AND 
TO  THE  TEACHERS  COLLEGE  LIST 


Book 

r 

Book 

r 

I 

- 0.14 

VI 

+ 0.21 

II 

- 0.09 

VII 

— 0.12 

III 

- 0.32 

VIII 

- 0.12 

IV 

- 0.35 

IX 

- 0.19 

V I 

- 0.57 

X 

+ 0.32 

Table  reads:  In  Book  I the  correlation  between 

the  repetition  of  the  words  common  to  it  and 
to  the  Teachers  College  list  and  the  diffi- 
culty of  these  words  is  - 0.14;  in  Book  II 
the  correlation  between  the  repetition  of 
the  words  common  to  it  and  to  the  Teachers 
College  list  and  the  difficulty  of  these 
words  is  - 0.09;  etc. 


As  in  Table  XXX  we  find  appreciably  large  negative  correlation  between 


tv.  .,-2 


' 


i 1 1» 


' . 


- 109  - 


table  XXXII 

CORRELATION  BETWEEN  THE  REPETITION  OF  THE  WORDS  IN  THE  SPELLER  AND 
THEIR  DIFFICULTY.  (The  value  of  £ was  derived  from  only  the  word6 
common  to  the  speller  and  to  the  Ayres-Teacher s College  List.) 


1 

Grade 

Book 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

-o.o6 

-0.14 

-0.49 

-o.o8 

(a) 

(a) 

-0.25 

-0.16 

(a) 

0.02 

3 

-0.01 

-0.24 

-0.14 

0.02 

-0.01 

0.22 

-0.02 

0.17 

-0.12 

0.09 

4 

0.02 

-0.37 

-0.11 

-0.06 

-0.12 

0.30 

-0.21 

0.05 

0.05 

0.001 

5 

-0.02 

0.21 

-0.21 

0.05 

-0.15 

0.03 

-0.03 

-0.02 

-0.17 

0.18 

6 

0.02 

-0.17 

-0.17 

0.45 

-0.02 

0.04 

-0.20 

0.02 

-0.17 

0.03 

7 

-0.04 

-0.11 

0.22 

0.08 

-0.12 

0.40 

-0.22 

i 

o 

o 

—5 

-0.20 

0.03 

8 

-0.02 

-0.24 

0.01 

-o.o6 

-0.27 

0.19 

-0.11 

-0.11 

-0.07 

-0.18 

These  hooks  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 


Table  rgads:  In  Grade  2,  Book  I,  the  correlation  between  the  repetition 

of  the  words  in  this  speller  that  are  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  Col- 
lege List  and  the  difficulty  of  these  words  is  -0.06;  in  Grade  3,  Book 
I,  the  correlation  between  the  repetition  of  the  words  in  this  speller 
that  are  common  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  List  and  the  difficulty 
of  these  words  is  -0.01;  etc. 


- 110  - 


the  repetition  and  the  difficulty  of  words  in  eight  of  the  spellers.  However, 
in  this  table  we  find  two  appreciably  large  positive  correlations — Books  VI  and 
X*  It  will  be  noted  that  Book  VI  has  approximately  the  same  value  for  r in  both 
tables,  but  Book  X shows  a strong  positive  correlation  in  this  table,  whereas 
in  the  former  it  showed  practically  no  correlation.  However,  the  large  positive 
value  of  r means  little  for  Book  X because  the  average  repetition  is  less  than 
2,  as  shown  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  chapter. 

Correlation  Between  Repetition  and  Difficulty  b£  Grades  in  Each  Book 

In  the  preceding  discussion  of  the  correlation  between  difficulty  and 
repetition,  we  were  concerned  with  the  spellers  as  a whole.  In  our  search  to 
determine  the  true  status  of  the  spellers  in  this  regard  we  examined  them  grade 
by  grade.  We  calculated  the  value  of  r on  the  basis  of  the  Ayres-Teachers  Col- 
lege list  of  "most  frequently  used  words”  and  on  the  basis  of  one  of  its  compo- 
nents—-the  Teachers  College  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words’! 
As  mentioned  in  the  preceding  section,  we  made  this  second  series  of  calculations 
in  an  effort  to  avoid  certain  words  because  "they  are  true  construction  words 
and  necessary,  no  matter  what  the  nature  of  the  subject  under  consideration." 

The  correlation  between  the  repetition  and  the  difficulty  of  the  words 
common  to  each  grade  in  each  speller  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  is 
shown  in  Table  XXXII. 

I 

Because  of  the  prevalence  of  negative  signs  and  the  small  values  of 
r , the  general  impression  from  the  table  is  that  the  correlation  between  repeti- 
tion and  difficulty  of  the  words  in  the  grades  is  either  inverse  or  absent. 

An  examination  of  the  size  of  the  positive  values  of  r,  (e.  g.  consider  the 
positive  values  of  r that  are  smaller  than  0.1C)  further  confirms  the  impression 
that  there  is  either  a negative  or  zero  correlation  between  the  difficulty  and 
the  repetition  of  the  words.  To  be  sure,  this  is  assuming  for  all  words  in  each 
grade  the  same  status  as  found  for  the  words  common  to  each  grade  and  the  Ayres- 


1 ^ J.  ' 1 • . • 

. . * 


i 

J 


. 

- - • 

. - , / • . ■ ■ v 

r _ -I  Q-J  ; 

' ' 

. ..  . ' 


' 


. : 


•- 'i ■? 


•-  i.  . 


• * ‘ • • 

. ■ . 

. • 

‘ l 


- Ill 


- 112  - 


Teachers  College  list. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  exclude  the  Ayres  words  from  consideration, 
the  values  of  r based  on  the  Teachers  College  list  alone  (Table  XXXIII)  show  a 
preponderance  of  positive  correlations  for  the  grades.  In  fact,  there  are  53 
positive  correlations  and  only  14  negative  ones.  But  only  a few  of  the  positive 
correlations  are  large  enough  to  be  significant.  None  is  as  large  as  0.40.  The 
average  of  the  positive  correlations  is  0.175*  Thirteen  of  the  correlations  are 
less  than  0.10.  We  are  pretty  well  agreed  that  such  coefficients  have  little 
meaning. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  what  value  of  r would  be  significant.  However, 
for  all  values  below  0.25  we  are  probably  safe  in  assuming  that  the  correlation 
is  not  significantly  large.  Therefore,  comparatively  few  grades  have  a signifi- 
cantly large  value  for  jr.  Only  13  of  the  67  grades  in  the  ten  spellers  meet 
this  assumed  standard. 

The  reader  will  also  observe  that  the  negative  and  extremely  small 
positive  correlations  tend  to  appear  in  the  lower  grades.  For  example,  9 of  the 
14  negative  coefficients  are  attached  to  Grades  2 and  3,  and  no  higher  grade  has 
more  than  one  such  coefficient.  Two  considerations  lead  us  to  believe  that 
authors  are  more  successful  with  hard  than  with  easy  words  in  making  repetition 
Hgo  with'*  difficulty.  The  firet  consideration  is  that  a preponderance  of  posi- 
tive coefficients  only  appears  when  we  consider  the  Teachers  College  list  alone— 
i*  e.,  the  hardest  list.  The  second  is  that  even  with  that  list  the  authors  are 
most  successful  in  the  upper  grades  where  naturally  the  words  are  the  hardest. 

The  correlations  between  the  repetition  and  the  difficulty  of  the 
words  common  to  the  different  grades  and  to  either  the  Ayres-Teachers  College 
list  or  the  Teachers  College  list  alone  are  either  negative,  none,  or  not  large 
enough  to  be  of  real  significance.  All  of  which  confirms  the  statement  that  our 
modern  spellers  are  propagating  correct  spelling  of  the  easy  words  which  will 
therefore  always  remain  easy,  while  the  present  difficult  words  will  always 


- 113  - 


remain  difficult  because  of  insufficient  repetition  to  make  them  relatively 
easier. 

At  this  point  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  do  not  have  reliable  data 
on  the  learning  difficulty  of  words  which  may  not  be  the  same  as  the  spelling 
.difficulty.  If  we  had  the  learning  difficulty  expressed  in  terms  of  the  factors 
of  habit- formation— especially  repetition— cur  comparisons  could  be  made  direct 
instead  of  indirect  as  ours  have  been,  i.  o.,  by  assuming  that  one  of  the  reasons 
why  words  are  relatively  difficult  to  spell  is  because  of  the  relatively  few 
experiences  that  the  school  children  have  with  spelling  these  words.  We  might 
come  to  the  same  conclusions  about  the  spellers  that  we  have  just  reached;  but 
the  argument  would  be  more  direct  and  perhaps  more  convincing.  Therefore,  we 
suggest  that  one  of  the  problems  for  future  research  is  the  derivation  of  a 
learning  difficulty  factor  for  each  of  the  three  thousand  words  in  the  Ayres- 
Teachers  College  list  and  that  this  factor  be  expressed  at  least  in  the  number  of 
repetitions  necessary  to  insure  permanently  correct  recall. 

From  the  viewpoint  of  the  teacher  these  data  on  correlations  between 
difficulty  and  repetition  suggest  that  he  should  know  the  spelling  difficulty  of 
the  words  taught  and  that  he  take  measures  to  provide  for  many  more  pupil  exper- 
iences with  the  difficult  words  than  are  offered  by  the  speller.  From  the  view- 

| 

point  of  the  construction  of  spellers,  provisions  should  be  made  for  much  more 
repetition  of  the  relatively  more  difficult  words.  Further,  the  speller  would 
immeasurably  aid  the  teacher  if  certain  devices  were  used  to  indicate  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  words.  This  might  be  done  in  an  alphabetical  "finding"  vocabulary 
for  each  grade.  Finally,  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  authorities  who  select  the 
spellers,  they  should  know,  among  other  things,  what  provisions  are  made  for 
repetition  of  the  words  according  to  their  difficulty. 

Correlation  Between  Repetition  in  Spellers  and  in  Adult  Usage 
In  the  preceding  section  the  data  indicated,  in  general,  either  no 


- 114  - 


correlation  or  negative  correlation  between  repetition  and  difficulty  of  the 
words  in  spellers.  That  ie,  in  the  first  case  there  was  no  relation  between  the 
spelling  difficulty  of  the  words  and  the  number  of  times  they  appeared  in  the 
spellers,  and  in  the  other  case  the  easy  words  were  repeated  more  than  the  diffi- 
cult words.  Therefore,  we  assume  that  the  principle  of  difficulty  did  not  func- 
tion in  the  arrangement  of  the  words  because,  if  it  had,  the  more  difficult  words 
in  the  selected  vocabulary  would  have  been  repeated  more  than  the  easy  ones. 

However,  it  is  possible  that  the  well-known  principle  of  use  in  curric- 
lum  construction  might  have  been  the  criterion  of  the  authors  of  the  spellers. 

If  this  principle  has  functioned,  we  should  expect  to  find  a high  positive  cor- 
relation between  the  repetition  of  words  in  the  spellers  and  the  words  used  in 
written  work  outside  the  spellers.  The  only  words  for  which  we  have  a frequency 
factor  are  those  derived  from  adult  writing-correspondence,  newspapers,  etc. 
Hence,  the  phrase  ’’written  work  outside  the  spellers"  must  be  confined  to  adult 
usage  as  stated. 

One  would  expect  to  find  a high  positive  correlation  between  repetition  5 
in  the  spellers  and  in  adult  usage  for  three  reasons.  First,  the  authors  of  the 
spellers,  as  mentioned  in  Chapter  I,  state  in  their  prefaces  that  they  had  made 
use  of  recent  scientific  studies  of  spelling  vocabularies  and  most  of  these  were 
based  on  adult  writing  in  which  frequency  of  use  was  the  criterion.  Second,  the 
prevalence  of  dictation  material  would  tend  to  bring  about  repetition  of  words, 
especially  those  necessary  in  writing  about  any  subject.  Third,  absence  of 
positive  correlation  between  difficulty  and  repetition,  as  shown  in  the  foregoing 
section,  might  lead  one  to  think  that  the  principle  of  use  is  functioning  because 
"to  a certain  extent  there  is  an  inverse  relationship  between  difficulty  and 
frequency  of  use."^ 

3 Buckingham,  B.  R.  "Scientific  curriculum  building,"  (Editorial),  Journal  of 
Educational  Research,  1:406,  May,  1920.  


( • ' • : 


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115 


The  principle  of  use  may  operate  in  curriculum  construction  in  spelling 
in  one  or  both  of  two  ways.  First,  we  may  place  in  the  spelling  vocabulary  words 
within  certain  specified  limits  of  frequency  of  occurrence  in  their  Hnatural  set- 
ting." Second,  we  may  place  the  words  as  frequently  in  the  spellers  as  they 
occur  in  their  "natural  setting."  When  this  is  done,  the  first  case  is  included. 
We  have  covered  the  first  case  in  Chapter  IV  and  we  shall  deal  with  the  second 
in  this  chapter. 

In  order  that  we  might  test  the  extent  to  which  there  is  correlation 
between  the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  words  in  spellers  and  the  frequency  of 
occurrence  of  these  words  in  adult  usage,  we  were  again  limited  to  the  words 
common  to  the  spellers  and  to  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  list  because  these  words 
have  a known  frequency.  In  the  second  place,  we  found  it  impossible  to  calculate 
the  value  of  r on  all  the  words  as  derived  by  the  first  limitation  because  of 
lack  of  time  and  clerical  help.  Therefore,  we  made  a random  sampling  of  words-- 
50  from  the  Ayres  component  and  50  from  the  Teachers  College  component— and  cal- 
culated the  correlation  between  the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  these  words  in  the 
spellers  and  in  adult  usage.  The  values  of  r thus  derived  are  shown  in  Table 


XXXIV. 


TABLE  XXXIV 

CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  REPETITION  IN  SPELLER 
AND  IN  LIFE  BASED  ON  100  WORDS  SELECTED  AT 
RANDOM  FROM  THE  AYRES-TEACHERS  COLLEGE  LIST 
AND  COMMON  TO  EACH  OF  THE  SPELLERS 


Book 

r 

Book 

r 

I 

0.004 

VI 

0.76 

II 

0.79 

VII 

0.79 

III 

0.49 

VIII 

0.83 

IV 

-0.02 

IX 

0.72 

V 

0.90 

X 

0.66 

116 


Table  reads:  In  Book  I the  correlation  between 

the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  100  words  se- 
lected at  random  from  the  Ayres-Teacher s 
College  list  and  the  frequency  of  occurrence 
of  these  words  is  0.004;  etc. 

Looking  over  the  table  we  see  that  eight  of  the  ten  spellers  have  a 
positive  correlation  between  repetition  in  the  spellers  and  in  adult  usage,  while 
two  of  the  spellers,  Books  I and  IV,  show  practically  no  correlation.  Little 
relation  if  any  exists  between  the  proportionate  amount  of  dictation  because  the 
eight  spellers  having  the  high  values  of  r have  both  the  highest  and  the  lowest 
proportionate  amount  of  dictation,  as  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  data  in  this 
section  with  the  data  in  Chapter  VII.  As  stated  in  the  introductory  paragraphs 
of  this  section,  there  should  be  an  inverse  relation  between  the  principles  of 
difficulty  and  of  use.  That  is,  the  larger  positive  values  of  r in  this  section 
should  be  paired  with  the  larger  negative  values  of  r in  the  preceding  section. 
However,  a comparison  of  the  corresponding  values  of  the  r^s  in  the  two  tables 
shows  that  no  such  close  inverse  relation  exists. 

There  is  another  sense  in  which  we  might  interpret  inverse  relation, 
i.  a. , the  higher  the  correlation  between  the  repetition  in  the  spellers  and  the 
repetition  in  life,  the  nearer  the  correlation  between  difficulty  and  repetition 
in  the  spellers  approaches  zero  or  no  correlation.  However,  again,  thi3  relation 
does  not  exist  as  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  values  of  r in  this  section  and 
in  the  preceding  one.  Therefore,  the  principle  of  use  as  we  have  interpreted 
it  does  not  seem  to  take  the  place  of  the  principle  of  difficulty  or  the  opposite. 

The  one  speller  that  attracts  our  attention  is  Book  VI.  This  speller 
exemplifies  a combination  of  the  principles  of  difficulty  and  of  use  in  curric- 
ulum construction  that  is  highly  desired.  That  is,  there  is  a relatively  high 
correlation  between  repetition  in  the  speller  and  difficulty  of  the  words,  and  a 

high  correlation  between  repetition  in  the  speller  and  repetition  in  life  or 
adult  usage. 


. 

* . J 

• \ 

J . 

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- . 


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. 


- 117  - 

Some  suggestions  concerning  review  of  words  may  not  be  out  of  place. 
High  frequency  words  in  life  should  be  in  the  spellers.  The  difficult  words  that 
are  frequently  used  should  have  high  repetitions.  Of  two  words  each  equally 
common,  that  word  should  be  repeated  the  more  which  is  the  more  difficult.  Sim- 
ilarly, of  two  words  of  equal  dif ficulty— that  difficulty  being  relatively  high— 
the  more  common  word  should  be  repeated  the  more  often.  However,  if  the  two 
words,  having  equal  difficulty,  are  easy,  there  appears  to  be  no  reason  why  the 
more  common  one  should  occur  more  frequently  in  the  spellers.  This  is  because 
the  repetition  in  life  will  take  care  of  the  spelling  of  such  words. 


- 118  - 


CHAPTER  VII 
FORMS  OF  PRESENTATION  OF  WORDS 

The  textbook  plays  a very  important  role  in  American  education.  To 
a large  majority  of  our  elementary  teachers  it  furnishes  all  the  subject  matter 
taught  to  the  pupils  and  the  chief  guide  to  the  methods  of  teaching.  However, 
it  should  be  noted  in  passing  that  this  is  not  so  much  an  indictment  of  the 
teachers  as  it  is  a suggestion  to  the  authors  of  textbooks  that  they  select  the 
contents  as  carefully  as  possible  in  the  light  of  scientific  investigations  and 
use  the  best  established  forms  of  presentation  for  this  content. 

The  significance  of  the  forms  of  presentation  lies  in  the  suggestions 
to  teachers  of  the  methods  of  teaching  that  may  be  employed  in  assisting  pupils 
to  gain  control  of  the  subject  matter.  For  example,  if  the  adopted  speller  pre- 
sents the  words  in  column  form  only,  the  teacher  will  be  more  likely  than  would 
be  the  case  with  a different  form  of  presentation  to  have  the  pupils  confine 
their  spelling  work— both  study  and  reproduction— to  column  form.  The  pupils 
will  be  required  to  study  the  words  in  column  form,  spell  them  orally  to  the 

! 

teacher  as  h©  pronounces  them  from  the  columns,  and  to  write  them  in  column  form 
whenever  the  words  are  written  for  purposes  of  the  spelling  lesson.  On  the  other 
n&nd,  if  words  are  presented  in  the  speller  in  both  column  and  dictation  forms, 
the  pupils  will  study  the  words  in  both  settings,  and  the  teacher  is  more  likely 
to  have  the  pupils  write  them  in  column  and  in  dictation  forms  as  methods  of 
reproduction,  because  of  the  example  set  in  the  speller. 

j 

One  of  the  purposes  in  our  project  in  the  analysis  and  measurement  of 
spellers  was  to  express  quantitatively  some  of  the  more  important  forms  of  word 
presentation.  As  mentioned  in  Chapter  II,  the  clerks  as  they  transferred  each 


word  from  the  speller  to  the  cards  entered  thereon  a symbol  indicating  the  form 
of  presentation  in  which  the  word  was  found— whether  in  columns,  in  column  review, 
in  supplementary  lists,  in  dictation,  in  dictation  review,  etc. 

All  the  data  obtained  for  this  chapter  were  taken  from  the  master  cards. 
If  we  wished  to  determine  the  number  of  column  words,  we  counted  the  C’s  (the 
symbol  for  column  words)  on  the  master  cards;  or  if  the  number  of  column  review 
words,  we  counted  the  number  of  CR*s  (the  symbol  for  column  review  words)  on  the 
master  cards;  or  if  the  number  of  dictation  words,  we  counted  the  number  of  D»8 
(the  symbol  for  dictation  words)  on  the  master  cards;  etc.  The  foregoing  method 
was  used  while  the  master  cards  were  still  in  alphabetical  arrangement  b£  grades 
in  each  speller;  and  in  order  to  find  the  total  for  a speller  for  a given  item, 

0»  g«  C!»  the  grade  items  of  the  same  kind  were  added. 

The  reader  should  be  cautioned  to  consider  the  data  in  this  chapter 
more  indicative  than  absolute,  because  of  the  many  difficulties  encountered  in 

J 

this  phase  of  the  project.  First,  as  implied  in  Chapter  II,  it  was  not  always 
possible  to  decide  to  our  entire  satisfaction  just  the  category  in  which  to 
place  a given  set  of  words.  This  confusion  was  due  in  many  cases  to  a different 
nomenclature  used  in  the  spellers,  and  in  many  cases  to  the  different  contexts 
in  which  the  words  were  set.  Second,  errors  no  doubt  slipped  into  the  work 
because  of  the  necessity  of  training  the  clerks  on  the  job.  Third,  the  handling 
of  thousands  of  cards  made  it  impossible  to  prevent  some  errors  from  creeping 
into  the  work.  However,  we  exercised  all  the  care  possible  and  we  feel  reasonably 
sure  that  we  have  not  made  very  large  errors  in  the  counts  for  any  of  the  differ- 
ent forms  of  presentation. 

Another  limitation  to  the  investigation  of  the  forms  of  presentation  is 
the  lack  of  conclusive  experimental  data  on  the  effects  of  the  different  forms 
of  presentation.  For  example,  we  do  not  know  whether  column  form  of  presentation 
alone  is  superior  to  or  inferior  to,  say , dictation  form  alone;  or  whether  a com- 
bination of  column  and  dictation  forms  is  superior  or  inferior  to  either  the  one 


. 


i 


r 


Eu  . 


. 


. . . 


. . . . > 


. * • - 


. 


' ’ ■ ...  .. 


- 


’• 


» S : 


1 

. .j:  . . , 


■ 


- 120  - 


or  the  other  alone.  Consequently,  we  shall  have  to  wait  on  the  development  of 
experimental  pedagogy  before  we  can  say  conclusively  that  one  speller  is  better 
than  another  because  of  a given  form  of  presentation  in  one  and  not  in  another. 
Therefore,  we  shall  have  to  content  ourselves  with  exhibiting  the  findings,  show- 
ing general  practices,  and  variations  in  the  practice  for  a given  form  of  pre- 
sentation. 

Percent  of  Spellers  Consisting  of  Dictation  Material 

With  the  foregoing  statements  of  the  limitations  in  mind,  we  shall 

proceed  to  exhibit  the  findings  in  the  ten  spellers.  First,  we  shall  call  the 

reader's  attention  to  the  percent  that  dictation  material^"  is  of  all  printed 
2 

material  in  the  spellers.  The  mass  picture  for  each  of  the  ten  spellers  is 
shown  in  Table  XXXV. 

TABLE  XXXV 

PERCENT  OF  SPELLERS  CONSISTING  OF 
DICTATION  MATERIAL 


Book 

ipercent  of 
speller  in 
dictation 

Book 

Percent  of 
speller  in 
dictation 

I 

35*5 

VI 

(b) 

II 

51.3 

VII 

35.4 

III 

65-5<a) 

VIII 

32.4 

IV 

38.2 

IX 

23.5 

V 

44.9 

X 

(c) 

(a) 


(b) 

(c) 


Calculated  on  the  basis  of  Grades  2,  3,  4, 
5,  and  6 because  the  long  literary  selec- 
tions in  Grades  7 and  8 were  omitted. 

No  dictation  except  in  Grade  4. 

No  dictation  except  in  Grade  8. 


Table  reads:  In  Book  I 35*5  percent  of  all 

the  printed  material  in  the  speller  con- 
sists of  dictation  material;  etc. 


^Dictation  material  stands  for  the  sum  of  the  P's  (Dictation)  and  the  DR ' s 
(.Dictation  Review) . 


All  the  printed  material  stands  for  the  sum  of  C*  8 (Column),  the  CR1  s (Column 
J^evi9W)*  S^s  (Supplementary),  D' s (Dictation),  DR' s (Dictation  Review),  etc. 


*.  . 


I 


) . 


- 121  - 


These  data  indicate  that  there  is  little  agreement  as  to  the  proper 
percent  of  the  speller  material  that  should  be  given  to  dictation  material.  As 
far  as  the  spellers  are  concerned  that  use  dictation  material  as  a form  of  pre- 
sentation, there  is  wide  diversity  of  practice.  The  range  in  these  spellers  is 
from  23.5  percent  in  Book  IX  to  65.5  percent  in  Book  III.  Books  VI  and  X make 
no  use  of  dictation  material  except  in  one  grade  in  each  of  them.  In  the  former 
speller,  the  dictation  material  is  found  in  Grade  4,  in  the  latter  in  Grade  8. 

In  these  two  spellers  it  is  not  clear  why  there  is  a departure  from  straight 
column  presentation  nor  why  Grades  4 and  8 were  selected  for  this  purpose  rather 
than  some  other  grade  or  grades. 

Since  experimental  pedagogy  has  not  yet  given  enough  reliable  data  to 
determine  the  relative  value  of  column  presentation  versus  dictation  material, 
we  are  compelled  to  rely  upon  the  weight  of  opinion  as  exhibited  in  present  prac- 
tice m the  construction  of  spellers.  Therefore,  on  this  basis  we  conclude  that 
dictation  material  should  be  one  of  the  forms  of  presentation  in  the  spellers, 
because  eight  of  the  ten  spellers  in  our  list  make  use  of  this  form. 

considerations  lead  us  to  the  same  conclusion,  namely, 
that  the  spellers  should  contain  dictation.  First,  all  the  spelling  that  is  used 
by  the  individual  as  a tool  in  school  and  out  is  used  in  sentences.  Second,  the 
use  of  dictation  aids  in  the  motivation  of  the  work  in  school.  We  dare  say  that 
it  is  an  uninteresting  and  sterile  activity  to  sit  and  look  at  words  in  columns 
until  these  words  are  learned  to  a degree  of  perfection  that  will  permit  the 
pupil  to  meet  the  requirements  set  up  by  the  teacher  and  by  society.  Perhaps 
one  of  the  contributing  causes  of  the  difficulty  of  teaching  spelling  is  due  to 
the  teaching  of  the  words  out  of  their  natural  milieu. 

Per  cent  0^  ATI  Material  in  Each  Grade  Consisting  0 f Dictation  Material 

In  the  preceding  section  we  presented  a mass  picture  of  the  spellers 
by  snowing  the  percent  of  all  forms  of  presentation  that  consists  of  dictation 

I 


.. 

' 

- 

■ 

. 

. .. 

, 


. 


- V ' 


. V . L. 


. 


. 


. 

..  -!.  •-  ^ \ J«  - : U '• 

. , . . . 

•;  ^ ' : * : 


. • ' . . . 


. 


122  - 


TABLE  XXXVI 

AMOUNT  OF  DICTATION  EXPRESSED  AS  PERCENT  THAT  THE  WORDS  PRINTED 
IN  DICTATION  ARE  OF  ALL  THE  PRINTED  WORDS 


Gr  ade 

' 

T n " * 

Book 

— ■ — 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

2 

31.2 

41.8 

65.7 

39.3 

(a) 

(a) 

41.7 

37.9 

(a) 

0 

3 

39-5 

55.5 

56.7 

46.3 

38.7 

0 

46.4 

34.8 

20.3 

0 

4 

42.3 

52.9 

65*9 

51.5 

40.2 

10.3 

52.7 

36.7 

26.2 

0 

5 

41.2 

49.5 

69.5 

41.8 

48.2 

0 

44.9 

29.9 

27.3 

0 

6 

42.0 

52.5 

66.4 

32.0 

46.8 

0 

28.9 

28.9 

28.6 

0 

7 

31.5 

60.6 

(b) 

30.2 

47.6 

0 

28.2 

31.7 

23.1 

0 

8 j 

21.1 

46.2 

(b) 

26.3 

46.2 

0 

5-2 

27.8 

17.6 

50.8 

These  books  do  not  provide  for  spelling  in  Grade  2. 

Long  literary  selections  not  copied. 

Grade  2,  Book  I,  31.2  percent  of  all  the  printed  words 
are  in  dictation;  in  Grade  3,  Book  I,  39*5  percent  of  all  the  printed 
words  are  in  dictation;  etc. 


j. 


II 


material.  In  this  section  we  shall  show  in  each  grade  in  each  speller  the  percent 
of  all  the  forms  of  presentation  consisting  of  dictation  material.  Table  XXXVI 
gives  these  data. 

Leaving  out  of  account  Books  VI  and  X whose  lack  of  dictation  material 
has  already  been  noted,  we  observe  that  Book  IX  has  the  smallest  percent  of  dic- 
tation of  all  the  books  in  which  such  material  plays  a vital  part.  Book  VIII  is 
a close  second  in  this  respect.  Book  III  has  the  largest  percent— over  60  in  all 
grades  except  one  that  has  56*7  percent.  The  percents  in  this  speller  would  have 
been  much  higher  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades  if  the  long  literary  selections 
had  been  included.  Book  IX  has  the  least  amount — the  range  in  this  speller  being 
from  17.6  to  28.6.  The  wide  variation  among  the  spellers  raises  the  question  as 
to  what  is  the  optimum  percent  of  dictation  material  that  should  be  used  in  the 
presentation  of  the  words  to  the  children.  Since  we  have  no  norms  established 
by  experimental  pedagogy,  we  can  do  the  next  best  thing,  namely,  establish  them 
on  the  basis  of  present  practice. 

Perhaps  the  best  measure  for  this  purpose  is  the  median  percent  of  our 
ten  spellers  for  each  grade.  Accordingly  we  derived  Table  XXXVII. 


TABLE  XXXVII 

GRADE  NORMS  FOR  DICTATION  MATERIAL  BASED 
ON  MEDIANS8,  OF  EIGHTb  SPELLERS 


Grade 

Norm  for 

dictation 

material 

Grade 

Norm  for 

dictation 

material 

2 

40.5 

5 

43.3 

3 

42.9 

6 

37.0 

4 

46.9 

7 

31.5 

8 

26.3 

61 

Since  we  had  eight  cases,  an  even  number, 
we  took  for  the  median  the  point  half  way 
between  the  fourth  and  the  fifth  case. 


We  calculated  the  medians  on  the  basis  of 


IF 


1 


- 124  - 

eight  of  our  spellers  because  Books  VI 
and  X had  dictation  material  in  only  a 
small  amount  in  one  grade  each. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2 the  norm  for  dic- 

tation material  based  on  the  percent  that 
it  is  of  all  forms  of  presentation  is 
40.5;  etc. 

Reverting  to  Table  XXXVI  we  see  a consistency  in  the  percent  of  dicta- 
tion material  throughout  the  grades  in  Books  II,  III,  V,  VIII,  and  IX.  Thi3  is 
an  indication  at  least,  that  the  makers  of  these  books  planned  the  amount  of 
space  that  should  be  given  to  this  form  of  presentation.  In  Books  I,  IV,  and 
VII  there  is  an  increase  in  the  percent  of  all  material  devoted  to  dictation  up 
to  the  middle  grades,  then  there  is  a decrease  in  advancing  grades. 

Figure  8 shows  the  variation  in  practice  among  the  typical  spellers 
making  use  of  dictation  material  as  a form  of  presentation. 

Qrade  Norms  for  Certain  Forms  o£  Presentation  Based  on  Present  Practice 

In  the  preceding  section  we  showed  the  variation  in  grade  practice 
with  respect  to  the  percent  of  all  forms  of  presentation  which  consists  of  dic- 
tation material  and  grade  norms  for  this  item  based  on  present  practice.  However, 
in  order  that  we  might  approach  the  problem  from  a slightly  different  angle,  we 
shall  show  in  this  section  grade  norms  based  on  present  practice  for  the  percent 
of  the  forms  of  presentation  consisting  of  column  form,  of  column  review  form, 
and  of  dictation  form.  (We  are  here  using  these  terms  as  defined  in  Chapter  II.) 

We  had  planned  to  show  such  figures  for  all  forms  of  presentation, 
but  when  we  examined  the  data,  we  decided  to  confine  our  figures  to  the  three 
forms  mentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraph.  This  was  done  because  they  appeared 
more  consistently  in  all  the  spellers  than  any  of  the  other  forms.  Consequently, 
norms  for  any  of  the  other  forms  would  not  be  significant  because  of  their  being 
based  on  insufficient  data. 

Therefore,  in  Table  XXXVIII  we  show  the  grade  standards  derived  from 
present  practice  for  presentation  in  column,  in  column  review,  and  in  dictation. 
- ' 


. 


. 

■ u , . 

> 

■1J  i 


. 


, 


' 


. . • '■  • 

. ' 


, , - 


. ..  • J 


. 

■ ‘ V'  3 • 


//'yure  8 

Perce/?/  of  8pe//ers  Ca/ztposec/ 
of  D/c  fo  f/0/7  Ma  fer/a/ //?  7yp/ca/  Books 


Grade 

*-■-  1.  ' 1 -Jr  _± 


TABLE  XXXVIII 

PERCENT0,  CERTAIN  FORMS  OF  PRESENTATION  IS  OF 
ALL  FORMS  OF  PRESENTATION 


Grade 

Percent 
Column 
Form  is  of 
all  forms 

Percent 
Column  Re- 
view Form 
is  of  all 
forms 

Percent 
Dictation 
Form  is  of 
all  forms 

Total 
the  three 
forms 

2 

30.5 

17.4 

38.3 

fc=  ct  ■ B1 

86.2 

3 

33.7 

18.0 

36.7 

88.4 

4 

33.2 

16.8 

36.6 

86.6 

5 

35.5 

17.3 

39.8 

92.6 

6 

37.5 

18.4 

37.4 

93.3 

7 

42.3 

22.0 

34.4 

98.7 

8 

41.8 

19.5 

31.4 

92.7 

Calculated  on  number  for  each  iters  concerned  and  on 
the  total  number  for  all  items. 

Table  reads:  In  Grade  2 column  form  of  presentation 

is  30*5  percent  of  all  forms,  column  review  form  is 
17.4  percent  of  all  forms,  dictation  form  is  38.3 
percent  of  all  forms;  and  the  total  of  these  three 
forms  is  86.2  percent  of  all  forms;  etc. 

Consulting  Table  XXXVIII  one  sees  that  present  practice,  as  determined 
by  our  spellers,  decrees  that  the  proportion  of  column  form  of  presentation  shall 
increase  with  advancing  grades,  that  the  column  review  form  shall  remain  about 
on  a level,  and  that  the  dictation  form  shall  decrease  slightly.  Further,  he 
will  observe  from  the  column  which  shows  the  percent  these  three  forms  of  pre- 
sentation is  of  all  forms  of  presentation  that  a very  large  proportion  of  the 
spellers  is  devoted  to  these  three  forms.  For  example,  in  Grade  7 we  see  that 
forms  of  presentation  other  than  these  three  practically  disappear. 

Collation  of  All  Forms  of  Presentation  Examined 
In  the  preceding  section  we  exhibited  certain  of  the  more  prevalent 
forms  of  presentation  of  words.  However,  for  purposes  of  giving  the  reader  a 


i 


- 127  - 


complete  display  of  the  different  forms  and  in  order  that  we  might  make  further 
detailed  comparisons,  we  are  giving  in  this  section  a complete  collation  of  all 
the  forms  that  were  examined  in  our  project. 

Number  of  printed  words. --The  number  of  printed  words  in  each  form  of 
presentation  for  the  ten  spellers  used  in  our  study  is  shown  in  Table  XXXIX. 

These  figures  are  taken  from  tables  which  are  not  shown  in  this  dissertation, 
but  which  are  on  file  in  the  Bureau  of  Educational  Research,  College  of  Education, 
University  of  Illinois. 

A study  of  the  ranges  in  the  number  of  occurrences  of  words  in  the  dif- 
ferent categories  reveals  interesting  information.  The  range  in  the  number  of 
column  words  is  from  3903  in  Book  X to  7009  in  Book  VI.  The  average  of  the  ten 
books  is  4995  column  words.  The  range  in  the  column  review  words  is  from  540  in 
Book  X to  703?  in  Book  VI.  The  average  is  2516  column  review  words.  The  next 
form  having  entries  for  all  books  is  dictation.  The  range  is  from  315  in  Book 
VI  to  11,189  in  Book  III.  The  average  is  4225  dictation  words.  In  a study  of 
the  number  of  words  in  dictation  it  should  be  recalled  that  24  small  easy  words 
aggregating  approximately  27  percent  of  all  the  running  words  in  correspondence 
were  omitted.  Hence,  in  getting  a true  picture  of  the  amount  of  dictation,  these 
24  words  with  their  percent  of  frequency  should  be  taken  into  account. 

The  range  of  the  number  of  words  in  word-building  form  is  from  xero  in 
Books  III  and  X to  707  in  Book  IX.  The  average  is  404  on  the  basis  of  the  eight 
books  having  this  entry.  The  range  for  word-analysis  is  from  zero  in  Books  I 
and  X to  392  in  Book  IX.  The  average  of  the  eight  books  is  125»  The  range  for 
words  in  phonic  form  of  presentation  is  from  zero  in  Books  I and  X to  1132  in 
Book  VI.  The  average  of  the  eight  books  is  488  words  in  phonic  form.  The  other 
forms  show  scattering  entries  for  the  ten  books  and  comparisons  are  not  made. 

The  total  heading  at  the  right  side  of  Table  XXXIX  gives  an  idea  of 
the  number  of  printed  words.  The  range  is  from  5^96  printed  words  in  Book  X to 

— — — 


' 

- * 


' 

. 


1;  : 

-V  . . . '■ 

. i 


. • 

. 

. 

* *yt 

• 

■ 

* 

. 

• 

, 

. 

■ 



. 

' 

. 

V • 

■J  - • 

. \ . . : 

- K 

. . • ■ ' 


. 

■ •'  : 

■-  ■ 

- 128  - 


In  Book  I there  are  54-71  words  printed  in  columns,  2103  words  printed  i 
column  review,  1591  words  printed  for  supplementary  work,  etc. 


129  - 


to  19,523  in  Book  III.  The  average  of  the  ten  books  is  13,623.  One  cause  of 
the  large  number  of  printed  words  in  Book  III  is  the  great  amount  of  dictation 
and  one  of  the  causes  of  the  small  number  of  words  in  Book  X is  the  fact  that  it 
has  no  dictation. 

In  comparing  Books  V,  VI,  and  IX  with  the  others  it  should  be  kept  in 

mind  that  these  books  do  not  offer  spelling  for  Grade  2 while  the  others  do. 

Books  V and  VI  are  above  the  average  in  number  of  printed  words  regardless  of  the 

fact  that  they  have  one  less  grade.  It  should  also  be  noted  that  Book  VI  has  a 

negligible  amount  of  dictation.  Hence,  it  does  not  always  follow  that  the  spell- 
er having  the  greatest  amount  of  dictation  will  have  the  largest  number  of  printed 
words. 

To  summarize,  the  data  show  wide  variation  in  practice  in  the  number  of 
words  appearing  in  a given  form;  the  total  number  of  printed  words  in  a text  does 
not  have  perfeot  correlation  with  the  number  of  words  in  dictation;  and  there  is 
no  general  agreement  as  to  the  different  forms  of  presentation  that  should  be 

used.  These  facte  suggeet  that  the  field  of  methods  of  teaching  spelling  ie  for- 
tile  and  fallows 

j£?cetttage  each  form  of  presentation  is  of  all  forms  in  the  spellers.  — 
For  purposes  of  comparison  of  the  different  forms  of  presentation  in  each  speller 
the  percentage  system  has  certain  advantages.  Table  XL,  which  was  derived  from 
Table  XXXIX,  shows  the  percent  that  the  number  of  printed  words  in  each  form  of 
presentation  is  of  all  the  printed  words  in  the  speller. 

A survey  of  Table  XL  shows  that  all  the  spellers  present  words  in  col- 
umns, in  column  review,  and  in  dictation.  Column  review  ie  used  to  a very  small 
extent  in  Books  II  and  X.  Dictation  is  used  to  a very  small  extent  in  Books  VI 
ana  IX.  Further,  one  notes  that  these  three  methods  form  the  major  portion  of 
the  total  different  occurrences.  Over  three-fourths  of  the  printed  words  are 
found  in  these  forms  of  presentation,  if  all  the  books  are  considered  as  a unit. 


. 

*-» 

. 

. 

4 

' 

. : 

- •“ 

• 

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. 

“ 


- 


> 

- 


• * ' 


. 


_ • ' 


. . 


. 


■ ■ ' • ' 

, 


, 


TABLE  XL 

PERCENT  THAT  THE  NUMBER  OF  PRINTED  WORDS  IN  EACH  FORM  OF  PRESENTATION 
IS  OF  ALL  THE  PRINTED  WORDS  IN  THE  BOOK 


- 130  - 


ra 

E 

u 

o 


-p 

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5- 

© 

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T) 

© 

43 

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c 

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ro 

3 


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a 

>» 

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© 

43 

-p 

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c 

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S3 

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V. 

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T3 

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42  Pi 
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to 
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Table  reads;  In  Book  I the  words  printed  in  colurans  comprise  35«3  percent  of  all  the 
printed  words,  the  words  printed  in  column  review  comprise  13.6  percent  of  all  the 
printed  words,  the  words  printed  in  supplementary  work  comprise  10.3  percent  of  all 
the  printed  words,  etc. 


Such  forms  of  presentation  as  word  building,  word  analysis,  and  plural  formations 
take  up  a very  small  percent  of  the  books.  These  methods  of  rationalizing  spell- 
ing are  not  in  favor  with  the  textbook  makers  of  spellers.  The  layman  will  no 
doubt  be  surprised  to  find  that  such  a small  percent  of  the  pupil's  time  for 
spelling  is  taken  up  with  such  rationalizing  processes.  No  one  doubts  that  the 
outcome  of  instruction  in  spelling  is  a clear  image  of  the  words  taught,  but  it 
is  seriously  open  to  question  whether  major  reliance  should  be  placed  upon  the 
presentation  of  the  words  in  columns,  in  column  review,  and  in  dictation.  How- 
ever, this  is  a question  that  will  have  to  be  determined  by  extended  experiment. 

One  observes  that  many  of  the  texts  make  a slight  use  of  many  of  these 
forms  of  presentation.  Book  X,  for  example,  confines  its  forms  to  the  first  four 
listed  in  Table  XL.  The  reader  will  be  interested  in  knowing  that  in  this  book 
not  more  than  80  words  a grade  appear  in  column  review  form,  that  an  average  of 
less  than  100  words  a grade  appear  in  supplementary  form,  and  that  the  dictation 
appears  only  in  four  letters  at  the  end  of  the  work  for  Grade  8.  Further,  it  is 
observed  that  no  one  speller  uses  all  the  different  forms  of  presentation. 

There  is  a wide  range  of  practice  among  the  ten  spellers  as  to  the 
percent  of  space  allotted  to  a given  form  of  presentation.  Under  the  column 
form  we  find  that  the  range  is  from  20.9  percent  in  Book  III  to  66.0  percent  in 
Book  X.  Column  review  ranges  from  5.8  percent  in  Book  II  to  42.4  percent  in  Book 
VI.  Dictation  ranges  from  1.9  percent  in  Book  VI  to  57.4  percent  in  Book  III. 

The  dictation  in  Book  VI  appears  in  Grade  4 only  while  the  percent  of  dictation 
in  Book  III  would  perhaps  have  been  higher  if  the  long  literary  selections  in 
the  upper  grades  had  been  included  in  the  study.  In  the  three  major  ways  of 
presentation  of  words  the  spellers  are  decidedly  lacking  in  uniformity.  The 
present  lack  of  scientifically  determined  standards  of  methods  of  teaching  spell- 
ing are  vividly  pictured  in  these  ten  spellers.  The  whole  field  of  methods  of 
teaching  spelling,  as  indicated  before,  is  wide  open  and  there  has  been  very 
little  work  done  on  these  problems. 


. 

. 

' 

. 

J 

. • v 


. . ' . • v 


- 


:.  ..  . .s  . ' ....  . ♦:  'X  ' •.»’!  rfJ 

• ;J/i*  • f.  ' 

...  - • .;.v.  • 


. 


. 

■ 

. 


■ 


. 

• 

- 

-• 

. 


- 132 


CHAPTER  VIII 
TTO  DIMENSIONAL  CHECK  LISTS 

The  reader  has  doubtless  wondered  how  superintendents  or  textbook  com- 
missions might  devise  and  use  a shorter  method  for  obtaining  similar  data  on 
spellers  under  consideration  for  adoption  because  such  elaborate  and  extensive 
methods  as  described  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  are  not  feasible  for  these  school 
people.  In  order  to  answer  an  inquiry  of  this  nature  we  devised  a short  method 
of  comparison  of  the  selection,  gradation,  and  repetition  of  the  word  offerings 
in  the  grades. 

This  method  involves  the  use  of  a check  list  of  words,  the  object  be- 
ing to  find  out  how  many  of  these  words  appear  in  the  spelling  book  which  is  un- 
der examination.  We  have  called  our  check  list  *two  dimensional* , because  its 
words  exhibit  two  aspects  or  dimensions,  namely,  usefulness  and  difficulty. 

The  bases  of  our  check  lists  are  Anderson’s^  three  thousand  words  and 

2 

Ashbaugh's  Iowa  Spelling  Scales. 

The  first  step  in  the  derivation  of  the  check  lists  was  to  assign  Ander- 
son’s three  thousand  words  to  Grades  2 to  8 inclusive.  It  should  be  noted  that 
Anderson’s  list  is  arranged  in  descending  order  of  frequency  of  occurrence  of  the 
words.  Therefore,  the  first  180  words  on  the  Anderson  list  were  assigned  to 
Grade  2 on  the  assumptions:  (a)  that  the  most  frequently  occurring  words  should 
be  learned  by  the  lowest  grade;  and  (b)  that  this  grade  could  be  reasonably  ex- 

Anderson.  The  determination  of  a spelling  vocabulary  based  upon  written 
correspondence.  University  of  Iowa7  1917. 

2 

Ashbaugh.  Iowa  spelling  scales,  University  of  Iowa,  1919. 


'i  •; 


■ 

. 


. • ’ •-  v:  r ' ... 


. •* 


. v : -a 


. J.  . 


, , • > \ ■ Kj.  ife'ii  a 

■ 

■i  * v).  ‘ i ’ . • ‘ . \.  ....  ■;  c ‘is.  ; ....  .-.H 

. 

t-<  . ‘ j v.;  j 

..  .-  ' * 

, 

' 


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t •■■■>■ 

. 


: ' ■-.< 

‘I  .; 


. 

....... 


...  * 


133  - 


pected  to  learn  one  new  word  a day  for  l8o  days  of  a school  year.  The  next  360 
successive  words  were  assigned  to  Grade  3 on  similar  assumptions  except  that  this 
^rade  might  he  expected  to  learn  two  new  words  a day  for  180  days.  The  remain- 
der of  the  Anderson  list  was  assigned  in  a similar  manner  to  Grades  4,  5,  6,  7, 
and  8.  The  numbers  of  successive  words  were  assigned  as  follows: 


Grade 

"Number  0 r 
Successive 
Words 

Gr  ade 

~ *%um5eT  'oTm 

Successive 

Words 

2 

180 

5 

360 

3 

n 3 n 

360 

6 

540 

4 

360 

7 

540 



8 

7 64a 

Tne  assignment  to  Grade  8 is  irregular  in  number 
because  to  it  was  apportioned  all  the  words  remain- 
ing  in  the  Anderson  list  after  the  assignments  were 
made  to  the  preceding  grades. 

These  words  with  the  Anderson  frequency  and  the  Ashbaugh  spelling  percent  of  ac- 
curacy found  in  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scales  were  written  on  3”  by  5"  cards  and 
alphabetized  within  each  grade. 

Tne  words  for  each  grade  as  determined  by  the  preceding  method  were 
subjected  to  still  further  limitations  by  reference  to  their  spelling  percent  of 
accuracy  as  shown  by  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scales.  That  is,  from  each  grade  list 
were  excluded  those  words  whose  percent  of  spelling  accuracy  as  shown  on  the 
Iowa  Spelling  scales  for  the  given  grade  fell  between  73  and  100,  and  those 
words  whose  percent  of  spelling  accuracy  fell  between  27  and  0 for  the  given 
grade.  Tne  words  above  73  percent  accuracy  were  considered  too  easy  and  those 
below  27  percent  accuracy  were  considered  too  difficult. 

The  limitations  laentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraph  reduced  the  words 

as  selected  from  the  Anderson  list  to  120  for  Grade  2,  229  for  Grade  3,  197  for 

Grade  4,  156  for  Grade  5,  135  for  Grade  6,  102  for  Grade  7,  and  83  for  Grade  8. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  limitation  left  more  than  100  words  for  each  grade 


except  Grade  8,  In  order  to  get  100  words  for  this  grade  seventeen  were  taken 
from  Buckingham’s  Extension  of  the  Ayres  Spelling  Scale.  These  seventeen  were 
within  the  before  mentioned  percent  of  spelling  accuracy  limits  used  for  the 
other  grades.  Then  by  random  sampling  except  in  Grade  8»  100  words  were  chosen. 
The  lists  thus  selected  constituted  our  two  dimensional  test  lists  for  the  grades 
These  lists  are  reproduced  in  full  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

In  the  preceding  paragraph  we  have  sketched  the  method  by  which  we  de- 
rived a checking  device  that  may  be  used  in  comparing  the  selection,  gradation, 
and  repetition  of  the  grade  vocabularies  of  spellers.  To  be  sure,  it  is  only  an 
alternative  for  a more  complete  analysis  of  the  contents  of  spellers.  However, 
superintendents  are  often  compelled  to  use  short  methods  in  order  to  get  busi- 
ness done.  Even  this  method  will  not  be  short  unless  each  textbook  provides  a 
finding  list  of  all  the  words  contained  in  it.  This  reminds  us  that  textbook 
makers  should  protect  themselves  against  inadequate  measures  of  the  extent,  sel- 
ection, gradation  and  repetition  of  the  contents  of  their  spellers  by  furnishing 
a complete  alphabetical  list  of  the  word  offerings  for  each  grade. 

We  had,  however,  the  vocabulary  of  each  one  of  the  ten  spellers,  and 
in  Table  XLI  we  are  reporting  the  results  of  the  application  of  our  two  dimen- 
sional check  list  to  these  spellers. 

Looking  at  the  totals  near  the  bottom  of  Table  XLI  one  observes  that 
Book  X has  the  greatest  number  of  words  common  to  the  lists  and  to  the  grades— 
240  words  in  all,  while  Book  II  has  the  least  number  common  to  the  lists,  and  to 
the  Grades— 96  words  in  all.  On  the  basis  of  the  number  of  words  common  to  the 
books  and  the  test  lists,  which  measures  selection  and  gradation  of  the  vocabu- 
lary the  spellers  rank  as  follows: 


J 


• ' - 


. 

* 

' 


< 


*: 


t ... 

>;  , • 

• j.X  • ■ ■ ■ 

c 


• 

. 

. 


— 


\ • 

i ' 

. ■... 

* - • i 

: 

TABLE  XL I 

DATA  OBTAINED  BY  THE  SERIES  OF  WO  DIMENSIONAL  CHECK  LISTS 


- 135  - 


1 

X 

eeouej 

-jnooo 

1 o 

1 oo 

1 

CO 

CO 

CO 

CQ 

rH 

CM 

CM 

CM 

CJN 

vr\ 

o 

OO 

CO 

CM 

\ 

i.  H 

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- 136  - 


Rank 

Book 

Rank 

Book 

1 

X 

6 

IV 

2 

VIII 

7 

VII 

3 

VI 

8 

IX 

4 

III 

9 

I 

5 

V 

10 

II 

However,  the  number  of  words  which  permits  comparison  of  selection  and 
gradation  is  not  the  only  criterion  by  which  we  may  compare  the  spellers  on  the 
data  in  Table  XLI.  Another  factor  may  be  considered,  namely,  the  number  of  oc- 
currences for  the  words  of  the  list  that  are  in  the  spellers.  These  occurrences, 
as  indicated  before,  provide  for  the  automatic  operation  of  one  of  the  laws  of 
habit -formation  (exercise)  in  so  far  as  the  maker  of  the  textbook  can  provide 
it.  The  average  number  of  occurrences  per  word  in  these  check  lists  is  shown 
for  each  book  at  the  bottom  of  Table  XLI.  In  comparing  the  spellers  we  are  rank- 
ing the  book  first  that  has  the  highest  average  number  of  occurrences.  The  ranks 
of  the  ten  spellers  are  as  follows: 


Rank 

Book 

Rank 

Bo  ok 

1 

I 

6 

V 

2 

VI 

7 

II 

3 

III 

8.5 

VII 

4 

VIII 

8.5 

IX 

5 

IV 

10 

X 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  these  rankings  on  the  basis  of  occurrences 
with  the  rankings  on  the  basis  of  number  of  words  common  to  the  lists  and  the 
textbooks.  It  may  be  noted  that  Book  I ranks  first  on  ths  basis  of  occurrences 
and  ninth  on  the  basis  of  the  number  of  words  common  to  the  book  and  to  the 


- 


' 


■ 


t 

. 


. 


, 


: • 


- 


‘ 1 ( 


. 


. 


. 


' 

. 


- 137  - 


1 istg,  while  it  may  be  seen  that  Book  X ranks  first  on  the  number  of  words  com- 
mon to  it  and  the  lists  and  tenth  on  the  basis  of  the  average  number  of  occur- 
rences per  word. 

i->ei  us  assume  that  Book  I is  excellent  from  the  standpoint  of  occur- 
rences and  one  of  the  poorest  from  the  standpoint  of  word  selection  and  grada- 
tion, and  that  the  reverse  is  true  of  Book  X.  Then  the  question  arises  as  to 
which  is  the  better  speller  when  these  two  standards  are  both  considered.  Since 
we  know  of  no  accurate  way  of  weighting  the  two  criteria  other  than  allowing 
equal  weight  to  them,  we  shall  add  the  ranks  on  the  occurrences  and  on  the  sel- 
ection and  gradation  of  words.  The  book  having  the  smallest  rank  sum  we  shall 
give  a new  rank  of  on^,  the  book  having  the  next  to  the  smallest  rank  sum  will 
be  called  number  two,  etc.  The  results  are  as  follows: 


1 Rank 

Book 

j Rank 

Book 

1 

VI 

6 

V 

2 

VIII 

6 

X 

3 

III 

8 

VII 

4 

I 

9 

IX 

6 

IV 

10 

II 

On  the  basis  of  these  two  criteria,  Book  VI  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
list  and  Book  II  at  the  foot.  The  claim  may  be  made  that  this  method  is  not 
the  proper  one  by  which  to  compare  the  spellers  but  it  appeals  tc  us  as  more 
quantitative  and  impersonal  than  any  other  methods  we  have  found. 

The  foregoing  is  an  illustration  of  what  any  superintendent  and  his 
corps  of  teachers  may  do  in  comparing  spellers  as  to  their  selection,  gradation, 
and  repetition  of  words.  This  is  a short  and  simple  task  for  the  spellers  that 
provide  an  alphabetical  finding  vocabulary  for  each  grade,  however,  if  this  is 
not  furnished  we  feel  that  a method  of  sampling  of  the  word  offerings  in  each 


. 


, 


. 

e 


* ( 


■ . 


'V  .'•>  < 


, •.  -1  . . r v ' : ; 


- ^ ' ’ ’i  - 


f . . . . . . i./  ' •• 


- 138  - 


grade  must  be  resorted  to  by  the  superintendent.  The  reliability  of  such  a meth- 
od will  depend  upon  the  extent  of  the  samplings  made  and  the  degree  to  which  the 
words  obtained  in  this  manner  are  representative  of  all  words  in  the  grade  vocab- 
ulary. Therefore,  as  suggested  before,  the  textbook  maker  should  protect  his 
speller  against  chance  methods  of  comparison  by  providing  an  alphabetical  find- 
ing list  of  the  word  offerings  in  each  grade. 

The  sampling  may  be  made  by  selecting  the  words,  for  example,  in  every 
f ourth  page  and  checking  them  against  the  two  dimensional  check  list  selected  for 
this  purpose.  (The  Ayres -Teachers  College  list  and  the  Anderson-Ashbaugh  list  are 
the  only  ones  of  any  extent  that  are  now  available  for  purposes  of  devising  such 
check  lists.) 

To  assist  the  superintendent  in  making  comparisons  of  his  findings  for 
the  spellers  that  he  may  examine,  we  are  showing  in  Table  XLII  a conspectus  of 
the  rankings  of  the  ten  spellers  examined  by  us. 

We  are  refraining  from  making  any  combinations  because  these  rankings 
may  mean  different  things  for  different  people.  For  example,  we  might  combine 
columns  1 and  2 which  show,  from  two  different  points  of  view,  the  extent  of  the 
utilization  of  existing  vocabulary  studies.  However,  the  two  ideas  are  not  the 
same,  and  the  difference  in  ranks  indicates  this.  Moreover,  the  value  of  r by 
the  foot-rule  formula  amounts  to  only  C,25» 

Again  columns  4 and  5 might  be  combined  because  each  represents  the 
notion  of  repetition.  Indeed  the  data  represented  by  these  two  columns  are  so 
closely  related  that  they  tell  practically  the  same  story.  Tftis  will,  likewise, 
be  seen  by  inspecting  the  ranks  entered  in  these  two  columns.  The  value  of  r 
by  the  foot-rule  formula  is  approximat ely  0.85»  A third  combination  could  be 
made  by  using  columns  6 and  7»  Finally,  it  would  be  possible  to  combine  the 
entire  series  into  a general  rank. 

In  spite  of  these  many  possibilities  for  making  combinations  we  did 
not  make  them,  because  we  felt  that  the  combinations  would  be  made  differently 


- 


- 


1 


< 

- .... 

. ...  . : ■ . . ■ v'  ; 


l 1 1 

. 


( • ■ 


• C 

t . . 

, 

. 


. 

. 

. 


. 


. 


139 


TABLE  XL II. 

CONSPECTUS  OF  RANKINGS  a'  OF  SPELLERS 


Book 

Percent 
of  Ayres- 
Teachers 
College 
words 

Percent  of 
words  in 
book  that 
are  Ayres- 
Teachers 
College 
words 

Difficulty 
of  words 

Grade  repe- 
tition of 
words 

Repetition 
of  words 
for  speller 
as  a whole 

Check 

list 

Number 
of  words 
in  book 

Number 
of  occur- 
rences 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

I 

7.5 

1 

9 

1 

2 

9 

1 

II 

10 

9 

8 

7 

8 

10 

7 

III 

7.5 

6 

1 

3 

1 

4 

3 

IV 

3 

5 

5 

5 

6 

6 

5 

V 

6 

10 

7 

4 

5 

5 

6 

VI 

9 

7 

2 

2 

4 

3 

2 

VII 

4 

4 

3 

8 

7 

7 

8.5 

VIII 

1 

3 

6 

6 

3 

2 

4 

IX 

2 

8 

10 

9 

9 

8 

8.5 

x 

* 

✓ 

2 

r r~  t —i— i mtm  i ■ r ~ 

4 

10 

10 

1 

10 

( a) 

^Rank  1 is  highest,  rank  2,  next  highest,  etc. 


- 14  C 


by  different  people  and  perhaps  by  the  same  person  at  different  times.  This  ab- 
sence of  agreement  arises  because  of  different  purposes  for  which  the  combinations 
of  rankings  may  be  made. 

To  assist  the  superintendent  still  further  in  his  study  and  comparison 
of  spellers,  we  are  presenting  in  Table  XLIII  the  different  grade  norms  derived 
in  our  project. 

It  would  save  the  busy  superintendent  a great  deal  of  time  if  he  could 
secure  already  prepared  a series  of  two  dimensional  check  lists.  Therefore,  in 
order  that  we  may  render  to  him  what  service  we  can,  we  shall  exhibit  in  the 
last  pages  of  this  chapter  our  series  of  check  lists  for  Grades  2 to  8 inclusive 
so  that  he  may  use  them  if  he  cares  to  instead  of  taking  the  time  to  prepare  a 
series, 

A statement  or  two  concerning  some  of  the  words  in  our  series  of  check 
lists  may  save  the  reader  some  confusion  of  thought.  For  example,  he  may  wonder 
why  we  put  the  two  words  "girlie"  and  "auntie"  in  our  lists.  We  must  confess 
that  these  words  were  slightly  shocking  to  our  taste.  However,  after  considering 
that  they  are  real,  dictionary  words,  that  they  are  in  the  Anderson  list  and  also 
in  Ashbaugh's  Iowa  Spelling  Scales,  and  that  they  were  properly  obtained  by  ran- 
dom sampling,  we  decided  to  take  no  liberties  with  them.  Consequently,  we  left 
them  in  our  check  lists. 


* 


• 

< 

. 


. 


i 

■ 

I , : 


< 


( 


TABLE  XLIII 

NORMS  DERIVED  PROM  PRESENT  PRACTICE 


141 


Median  of  eight  spellers  which  offer  dictation  systematically* 


- 142  - 

1 

CHECK  LIST  FOR  GRADE  II. 

1 

Selected 

at 

random  from 

the  first  180  words  of 

the  Ander- 

son  list  that, 

according  to 

the  Iowa  Spelling  Scale, 

are  spelled 

by  not  less  than 

27  nor  more 

than  73  percent  of  second-grade  pupils. 

about 

getting 

must 

than 

after 

girl 

name 

their 

again 

glad 

new 

them 

ago 

go  ing 

night 

there 

also 

got 

no 

these 

am 

had 

note 

they 

because 

hear 

now 

thing 

been 

her 

only 

think 

before 

here 

or 

time 

best 

him 

order 

to 

better 

home 

our 

under 

came 

house 

place 

us 

car 

how 

please 

use 

card 

just 

price 

very 

city 

kind 

right 

want 

coming 

letter 

same 

we 

could 

long 

school 

well 

don't 

made 

send 

what 

down 

make 

should 

when 

each 

money 

so 

which 

ever 

month 

some 

who 

every 

more 

state 

wish 

fine 

mo  st 

such 

work 

first 

Mr. 

sure 

would 

from 

much 

take 

write 

1 

- ^ 

- 143  - 


CHECK  LIST  FOR  ®ADE  III. 

Selected  at  random  from  the  l8lst  to  the  540th  inclusive 
words  of  the  Anderson  list  that,  according  to  the  Iowa  Spelling  Seal 
are  spelled  by  not  less  than  27  nor  more  than  73  percent  of  third- 


grade  pupils. 

always 

enjoy 

amount 

enough 

another 

even 

answer 

fair 

aunt 

fall 

awful 

family 

balance 

farmer 

big 

folk 

busy 

following 

buy 

forward 

called 

found 

can’t 

gone 

che  ck 

great 

children 

guess 

Christmas 

half 

church 

high 

county 

hoping 

cover 

however 

credit 

I'll 

date 

June 

dinner 

kindly 

do ctor 

large 

does 

later 

dollar 

mail 

enclo  sing 

making 

mamma 

set 

market 

sick 

mind 

since 

Mrs. 

sold 

near 

something 

nearly 

stock 

November 

subject 

number 

summer 

October 

supply 

office 

therefore 

p ayment 

tho  se 

people 

though 

per 

thought 

perhaps 

trusting 

pretty 

try 

quite 

until 

rate 

upon 

ready 

weather 

remember 

went 

reply 

whether 

report 

while 

request 

wrote 

seem 

yesterday 

sell 

young 

sending 

yourself 

. . 


. 


I'  ■ ' 


. " 


•;  . 


■ 


:<  c 


. .. 


144 


CHECK  LIS?  FOR  GRADE  IV. 

Selected  at  random  from  the  541st  to  the  900th  inclusive  words 
of  the  Anderson  list  that,  according  to  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scale,  are 
spelled  by  not  less  than  27  nor  more  than  73  percent  of  fourth-grade 
pupils. 


advance 

daily 

item 

recently 

advertising 

dealer 

join 

regarding 

afr  aid 

death 

knew 

replying 

aid 

decide 

loan 

require 

allow 

democrat 

local 

sale 

all  right 

director 

lose 

secure 

answering 

discount 

madam 

September 

anyway 

district 

married 

serve 

awaiting 

education 

music 

shipped 

auto 

election 

national 

sooner 

beginning 

enjoyed 

ought 

stayed 

benefit 

entirely 

owner 

student 

between 

envelope 

package 

suit 

bought 

exchange 

paint 

superintendent 

buying 

excuse 

pair 

third 

careful 

fifteen 

placed 

thousand 

cashier 

finish 

policy 

tire 

cause 

finished 

prepared 

trying 

changed 

firm 

prize 

uncle 

color 

fully 

program 

unless 

complete 

greatly 

promptly 

vacation 

considerable 

heavy 

purpose 

waiting 

continue 

hello 

quality 

welcome 

contract 

important 

quit 

whole 

copies 

instead 

quote 

women 

. 

■ 

, 

. 

■:  :w  ' < 

' 1 - 

. 

•A '' 

V ■ ' 

. 

• ' 

...  . 

. 

■ 

l .U-': 

V.Uttl 

\ i ■ . ' 

♦ • 

■ 

• t 

' 

145 


CHECK  LIST  FOR  GRADE  V. 

Selected  at  random  from  the  901st  to  the  1260th  inclusive  words 
of  the  Anderson  list  that,  according  to  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scale,  are 
spelled  by  not  less  than  27  nor  more  than  73  percent  of  fifth-grade 
pupils. 


acquainted 

addressed 

advanced 

advice 

arrangement 

assist 

assure 

assuring 

attorney 

awfully 

basis 

buyer 

cedar 

circumstances 

clerk 

client 

clothe 

commercial 

common 

confidence 

connection 

convenient 

cooperation 

council 

crowd 


depot 

desired 

develop 

duplicate 

entitled 

enjoying 

error 

etc. 

fairly 

favorable 

February 

furnished 

garage 

gentleman 

hospital 

imagine 
in  elude 
increase 
instant 
institution 

interesting 

invoice 

judgment 

knowledge 

lately 


lecture 

literature 

loss 

lovingly 

manner 

mentioned 

method 

missed 

model 

occasion 

offered 

operation 

opinion 

owing 

parcel 

parties 

patience 

planning 

practice 

prefer 

presence 
proceed 
product 
pro  f easier, 
properly 


prospect 

purchase 

purchased 

putting 

refer 

registration 

regret 

remit 

requested 

running 

satisfaction 

satisfied 

securing 

shipping 

shown 

simply 

splendid 

surprise 

surprised 

system 

territory 
various 
vary 
view 
who  se 


- 146 


CHECK  LIST  FOR  GRADE  VI. 

Selected  at  random  from  the  126lst  to  the  1800  inclusive  words 
of  the  Anderson  list  that,  according  to  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scale,  are 
spelled  by  not  less  than  27  nor  more  than  73  percent  of  sixth-grade 
pupils.' 


ability 

acceptance 

accident 

actual 

actually 

advertise 
advertisement 
advised 
af  f air 
allowed 

appeared 

appointed 

approval 

approved 

arranged 

arrival 

assigned 

assistance 

assumed 

assured 

bargain 
based 
bureau 
candidate 
cir cuit 


circulation 

combination 

concern 

conference 

considerably 

considered 
demo  cratic 
design 
difficult 
difficulty 

disease 

distribution 

exact 

exactly 

exception 

expen sive 

familiar 

favored 

finally 

fortunate 

fraternally 

furniture 

grateful 

grippe 

independent 


indicate 

instance 

investigation 

invitation 

Latin 

liable 

limited 

manual 

maintain 

meant 

merely 

merchandise 

moral 

natural 

neglected 

neither 

operating 

patron 

practical 

preparation 

previous 

publication 

published 

readily 

reasonable 


referred 

regularly 

relative 

reliable 

renewal 

represented 

response 

responsible 

route 

sanitary 

secured 

semester 

senior 

science 

scientific 

similar 
so  ciety 
spirit 
straight 
stopped 

strictly 

subscriber 

telephone 

urge 

usually 


CHECK  LIST  FOR  GRADE  VII. 

Selected  at  random  from  the  1801st  to  the  2340th  inclusive  words 
of  the  Anderson  list  that,  according  to  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scale,  are 
spelled  by  not  less  than  27  nor  more  than  73  percent  of  seventh-grade 
pupils. 


acquaintance 
administration 
admission 
affectionately 
af  fidavit 

algebra 

altogether 

alumni 

analysis 

announce 

announcement 

annually 

apparatus 

appearance 

applicant 

assessment 

assignment 

auditor 

ballot 

believing 

blizzard 

bonus 

brief 

capacity 

candidacy 


civics 

favorably 

quantities 

coarse 

generally 

quantity 

completely 

haste 

regretting 

compliment 

inconvenience 

safety 

consequently 

individual 

satisfy 

constitution 

inferior 

sense 

control 

influence 

signature 

cooperative 

institute 

sincere 

correspond 

instructor 

solicit 

correspondent 

jobber 

stationary 

coupon 

majority 

stomach 

crocheting 

necessity 

studying 

crowded 

opportunity 

succeed 

engineering 

orchestra 

succeeded 

enrollment 

organize 

suggested 

enthusiastic 

particularly 

supervisor 

essential 

permanent 

surplus 

established 

physical 

sympathy 

evidently 

planned 

tatting 

exceptional 

possession 

type 

exceptionally 

possibility 

unnecessary 

exclusively 

practically 

unusual 

executive 

principle 

variety 

explanation 

professional 

vicinity 

extremely 

qualities 

welfare 

. 


— 


, ..  : 


- 


■ ■ 

. 

. ■ 

♦i 

■ i 

V 

k w<  *, 

‘ . 


■ v 


Lit 


Selected 
son  list  that, 
not  less  than 


accommodate 

accompanying 

accredited 

accuracy 

acquire 

administrator 

advisable 

agricultural 

allotment 

ambitious 

anniversary 

anticipate 

anticipating 

appendicitis 

appreciating 

associate 

auntie 

authority 

beneficial 

bicycle 

Canvass 

carnival 

characteristic 

commissioner 

confirmation 


- 148  - 


CHECK  LIST  FOR  GRADE  VIII. 


at  random  from  the  2341st  word  to  the  end  of  the  Ander- 
according  to  the  Iowa  Spelling  Scale,  are  spelled  by 
27  nor  more  than  73  percent  of  eighth-grade  pupils. 


conservatory 

consultation 

continuous 

conveniently 

cooperating 

cordial 

courteous 

customary 

definitely 

demonstration 

disappoint 

disappointment 

embarrassment 

employees 

endeavor 

enormous 

enthusiasm 

ere 

executed 

exhausted 

exhibition 

fundamental 

geometry 

girlie 

guarantee 


Hallowe’en 

hastily 

immense 

ingredients 

inquiries 

installment 

interfere 

legislation 

leisure 

librarian 

license 
losing 
materially 
rnatur ity 
mechanical 

mischievous 

mortgage 

nickel 

notary 

occasionally 

o ccurrence 

originally 

parallel 

peculiar 

peculiarities 


perceived 
pho sphorus 
physician 
pneumonia 
politician 

possess 

poultice 

preliminary 

privilege 

relieved 

remembrance 

resemblance 

responsibility 

Sabbath 

satisfactorily 


sufficiently 

surgery 

thesis 

tuberculosis 

unusually 


sensible 

soliciting 

specially 

specification 

straightened 


J 


. - 

. J 


/ 


... 


. 


■I  . 


' >. 

. 

■ 


I 


. 


- 149  - 


CHAPTER  IX 
SUMMARY  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

A demand  ia  being  made  by  some  of  our  leading  contemporary  educators 
fer  projects,  similar  to  ours,  in  the  analysis  and  measurement  of  the  instru- 
ments of  instruction,  especially  of  the  textbooks  that  are  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  pupils  in  our  public  schools. 

The  number  of  words  in  the  vocabularies  of  the  ten  spellers  examined 
in  our  project  ranges  widely  from  3968  to  59*5  and  the  average  is  4900,  From 
sociological  and  psychological  considerations  the  vocabularies  of  eight  of  the 
ten  spellers  are  too  extensive.  We  found  that  the  learning  and  reviewing  load 
in  general  increases  in  the  advancing  grades.  However,  the  word  offerings  vary 
widely  among  the  ten  spellers  for  a given  grade, e,  g,  in  Grade  ^ one  speller 
has  843  words  and  another  i960,  indicating  absence  of  agreement  among  makers 
of  spellers  as  to  the  proper  learning  and  reviewing  load  that  should  be  car- 
ried by  the  pupils  in  a given  grade. 

We  found,  in  general,  that  the  Ayres  list  of  so-called  "thousand 
commonest  words"  is  well  represented  in  the  ten  spellers.  The  range  in  the 
number  of  appearances  of  these  words  is  from  808  in  one  speller  to  99^  in 
another.  The  words  in  the  Teachers  Cillege  list  of  so-called  "second  and 
third  thousand  most  frequently  used"  do  not  make  such  a fqyorable  showing* 

Of  the  2000  words  in  this  list  only  from  1019  to  1323  appear  in  any  one  ef  the 
ten  spellers.  On  the  basis  of  the  Ayres -Teachers  College  list  of  3000  words, 
we  found  that  from  one-half  to  two-thirds  of  the  spelling  time  of  the  pupils  is 
consumed  in  studying  words  that  are  not  among  those  "most  frequently  used".  By 


- 150  - 

an  examination  of  the  grade  offerings  of  the  Ayres -Teachers  College  words  we  dis- 
covered wide  variation  among  the  ten  spellers.  For  example,  in  Grade  2 the  range 
is  174  wsrde  of  this  list  and  in  Grade  7 the  range  is  613.  The  data  indicate 
that  learning  and  reviewing  the  Ayres -Teachers  College  words  is  cumulative  to  the 
end  of  the  middle  grades.  It  was  noted  that  in  advanced  grades  there  is  a de- 
ceasing percent  of  all  the  words  in  the  grades  that  are  common  to  the  Ayres- 
Teachers  College  list,  and  consequently  that  the  pupil  as  he  advances  from  grade 
to  grade  is  confronted  with  a decreasing  proportion  of  the  "mest  frequently  used 
words”.  Here  again  we  observed  wide  diversity  of  practice  among  the  ten  spellers. 
On  the  basis  of  the  median  percent  for  the  grades  the  Ayres  "thousand  commonest 
words"  were  offered  in  much  greater  proportion  than  the  Teachers  College  "second 
and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words." 

Using  the  best  single  index  number  of  difficulty  that  we  ars  able  to 
find  it  was  discovered  that  the  ten  spellers  as  a whole  are  practically  of  the 
same  difficulty.  On  the  basis  of  the  Ay  res -Teachers  College  words  common  to  each 
of  the  spellsrs  it  was  found,  as  was  to  be  expected,  that  in  general  the  spelling 
difficulty  of  the  words  progresses  from  lower  to  higher  grades.  Inversions,  how- 
over,  were  detected  in  some  of  the  spellers.  Further,  the  spellers  vary  widely 
in  the  difficulty  of  the  words  in  a given  grade.  Generally  speaking,  the  same 
is  true  when  we  considered  either  of  the  components  of  our  synthetic  liet.  These 
are  indications  that  no  one  speller  may  bee  best  suited  to  a group  of  grade  pupils 
in  a particular  school  system. 

In  general  the  range  of  difficulty  from  grade  median  to  grade  median 
is  small  in  comparison  with  the  range  in  difficulty  within  a given  grade  as  exhib- 
ited by  the  different  spellers.  That  is,  there  is  a narrow  range  among  things 

purporting  to  be  different  and  a wide  range  among  things  purporting  to  be  the 
same. 

When  the  difficulty  of  the  grade  offerings  of  the  spellers  was  measured 
1Ll0y^laonJ[.ith  pupil  abiU*y»  it  was  seen  that  the  spellers  are  too  difficult 


- 151  - 


; in  the  lower  gfades  and  too  easy  in  the  upper  ones* 

The  provisions  for  habit -formation  by  means  of  repetition  of  words  show 
a diversity  of  practice.  For  the  books  as  wholes  one  speller  has  4.1  average 
occurrences  per  word  while  another  has  1.4.  That  is, on  the  basis  of  repetition, 
other  things  oeing  aqual,the  first  speller  has  made  three  times  as  much  provision 
for  the  teaching  of  the  words  in  its  vocabulary  than  has  the  second  one. 

On  investigation  of  the  provision  for  habit -formation  within  the  grades, 
a wide  range  of  practice  was  again  found  among  the  ten  spellers,  especially  in  the 
lower  grades.  However,  when  the  upper  grades  were  reached  it  was  found  that  there 
is  a level  of  low  repetitions  per  word  in  all  the  spellers.  That  is,  none  of  the 
speilersoraake  such  automatic  provision  for  habit-formation  in  the  upper  grades,  re- 
gardless of  the  fact  that  the  laws  of  habit-formation  function  with  upper-grade 
children  as  well  as  with  those  of  the  loweiv grade.  The  foregoing  statements  are 
true  not  only  for  all  words  but  also  for  the  Ayres-Teachers  College  words  common 
to  the  grades.  An  investigation  of  the  extent  to  which  words  appear  in  different 
grades  of  the  spellers  revealed,  again, wide  variation  among  the  ten  books  in  our 
list.  This  fact  is  significant  because  spelling  tests  show  that  a given  word  or 
words  is  misspelled  in  more  than  one  grade. 

In  the  study  of  the  correlation  between  the  difficulty  of  words  and  the 
number  of  times  they  occur  it  was  discovered  that  the  easy  words  are  quite  as  like-* 
ly  to  occur  frequently  as  the  hard  words.  Consequently,  the  spellers  are  tending 
to  keep  the  "easy”  words  easy  and  the  “difficult"  words  difficult.  It  is  recog- 
nized that  spelling  difficulty  may  not  be  the  same  as  learning  difficulty.  How- 
sver,  at  present  because  of  lack  of  experimental  data  on  the  latter,  we  are  assum- 
ing a high  correlation  between  the  two.  Therefore, the  classroom  teacher  must  by 
various  devices  provide  the  pupils  with  many  more  experiences  with  the  difficult 
words  than  the  spellers  automatically  provide. 

By  an  investigation  of  the  correlation  between  the  repetition  of  the 
words  in  the  spellers  and  their  frequency  of  occurrence  in  adult  writing,  it  was 


noted  that  eight  of  the  ten  epellere  indicated  relatively  high  correlation  between 
these  two  uses  of  words.  However,  this  fact  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  these 
spellers  are  best  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  pupils,  because  by  virtue  of  the  fre- 
quency of  occurrence  of  words  in  life  their  correct  spelling  tends  to  be  taken 
care  of  in  the  undirected  experience  of  the  pupils.  On  the  other  hand,  we  need 
to  teach  many  words  because  they  are  misspelled  when  they  are  used  although  this 
may  be  seldom. 

An  examination  of  the  forma  of  presentation  of  the  words  in  the  spellers 
revealed  that  the  authors*  stock  in  trade  was  of  three  kinds,  namely,  calumn 
form,  column  review  form,  and  dictation  form.  On  the  one  hand, these  forms  were 
used  by  all  the  authors  and  on  the  other  they  included  the  major  portion  of  the 
words.  That  is,  other  forms  such  as  word  analysis  and  plural  formation  were  scat- 
tsringly  and  sparingly  used  in  the  spellers.  However,  in  the  use  of  the  three 
majs>r  forme  of  presentation,  as  well  as  in  the  minor  ones,  we  are  compelled  te 
state  that  the  spellers  exhibit  wide  variation  in  practice. 

Th©  reader  has  no  doubt  noted  - perhaps  not  without  impatience  - the 
fact  that  disagreement  among  textbook  writers  is  constantly  asserted.  We  have 
frequently  used  such  expressions  as  ’’large  variation”,  ”wide  range”,  "diversity 
of  practice”,  and  the  like.  The  fact  is  that  the  writers  of  spellers  agree  in 
nothing  so  closely  as  in  their  profession  of  faith.  They  unite  in  saying  that 
they  exemplify  the  results  of  recent  vocabulary  studies.  Yet  they  do  so  in  such 
a variety  of  ways  and  with  such  differing  degrees  of  success  that  in  many  impor- 
tant aspects  diversity  is  the  most  typical  single  descriptive  term  to  apply  to 
the  product  of  their  labor. 

The  question  of  whether  agreement  is  desirable  or  not  may  be  raised. 

With  pupils  of  varying  intelligence,  environment,  and  heritage  and  in  the  hands 
of  teachers  of  different  abilities, textbooks  undoubtedly  must  be  different  if 
they  are  to  produce  anything  like  the  same  results.  But  the  point  in  respect  to 
1fc88?„8P8ller8  *8  that  there  is  no  apparent  recognition  of  a particular  type  of 


I . 


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- 153  - 

teacher  or  pupil  for  whom  any  of  the  books  is  especially  appropriate.  An  author 
ie  unwilling  to  say:  "This  book  is  recommended  only  for  use  by  graduates  of  nor— 
mal  schools  or  collages  with  pupils  from  good  homes  and  of  predominantly  Anglo- 
Saxon  stock."  If  an  author  wars  willing  to  say  such  a thing,  his  publishers 
would  prevent  him.  The  result  is  that  each  speller  is  apparently  intended  for 
general  use  - i,  s,  for  the  purpose  of  producing,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  an  automa- 
tic control  of  a useful  vocabulary  among  all  types  of  children  and  through  the  agen- 
cy of  all  types  of  teachers. 

It  seems  clear  that  this  purpose  cannot  be  realized  even  "on  the  aver- 
age" equally  well  by  books  that  differ  so  essentially  in  content.  If,  for  example 
the  presentation  of  words  in  isolation  ought  to  be  reinforced  by  dictation  exer- 
cises, then  it  is  evident  that  the  same  measure  of  success  will  not  be  attained  by 
two  books,  of  which  one  has  no  dictation  at  all  and  the  other  65  percent  of  such 
material.  If  frequent  reviews  are  necessary  for  sufficient  learning,  it  is  equal- 
ly clear  that  the  book  which  presents  each  word  once  cannot  compete  with  a book 
which  presents  each  word  an  average  of  four  or  five  times.  If  an  adjustment  of 
difficulty  of  material  to  pupil  ability  is  desirable,  the  book  whose  gradation 
most  nearly  conforms  to  what  we  know  of  the  ability  of  pupils  will  be  superior 
to  one  which  either  shoots  over  the  heads  of  lower-grade  children  or  falls  far 
short  of  the  ability  of  upper-grade  children. 

We  have  no  experimental  evidence  concerning  the  effects  produced  by 
different  characteristics  in  books.  When  we  have  such  evidence  we  shall  become 
far  more  intelligent  both  in  writing  and  criticizing  textbooks.  Meanwhile,  it  ie 
perhaps  sufficient  to  point  out  the  divergencies  among  existing  texts  and  to  ob- 
serve that  with  ana  avowed  common  purpose  they  are  probably  as  variable  in  the 
results  they  secure  as  they  are  in  the  measures  they  adopt. 


- 154  - 

Suggestions 

In  the  development  of  our  project  certain  suggestions  have  come  te  mind 
that  may  be  of  practical  value  to  the  school  people  who  are  in  actual  contact 
with  the  public  schools*  We  have  also  picked  up  a number  of  suggestions  for  fur- 
ther research  projects  that  may  be  of  interest  to  workers  in  the  field  of  spel- 
ling. 

Suggestions  to  Superintendents 

It  is  not  feasible  for  the  superintendent  to  undertake  such  an  extended 
project  as  the  present  one  when  he  is  passing  judgment  on  the  spelling  texts  that 
may  be  used  in  the  school  system.  The  time  and  energy  involved  make  this  prohibi- 
tive, especially  for  the  superintendent  outside  the  largest  cities.  However,  he 
can  use  an  abbreviated  technic  and  certain  of  the  materials  that  we  used. 

The  superintendent  should  equip  himself  with  the  best  scientifically 
derived  vocabulary  obtainable  at  the  present  time,  perhaps  the  Ayres -Teachers 
College  list  of  three  thousand  "most  frequently  used  words.'*  Then  he  should 
equip  himself  with  an  alphabetical  list  of  the  word  offerings  in  each  grade  in 
each  speller  under  consideration.  This  is  a difficult  thing  to  do  because  spel- 
lers in  general  have  not  been  provided  by  the  authors  with  such  a list.  (Of  the 
ten  books  that  we  examined  only  two  made  such  a provision. ) 

Therefore,  owing  to  the  exceedingly  difficult  and  practically  prohibi- 
tive task  of  finding  the  complete  grade  offerings  of  spellers  which  is  very  es- 
sential in  anything  like  an  accurate  comparison  of  spellers,  we  recommend  strong- 
ly that  no  speller  be  considered  for  adoption  unless  it  is  provided  with  such  a 
"finding  list"  for  each  grade.  We  hold  unequivocally  that  it  is  an  affront  to 
the  schools  of  the  country  to  expect  spellers  or  for  that  matter  any  other  text- 
books to  continue  to  be  adopted  without  knowledge  of  their  contents.  To  be  sure, 
the  makers  of  textbooks  have  not  "wilfully  and  maliciously"  kept  as  a hidden  se- 
cret the  contents  of  their  books.  As  a matter  of  fact,  school  people  have  not 
demanded  that  a complete  exhibit  of  the  contents  be  made.  Moreover,  the  analysis 


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- 156  - 


In  preparing  the  list  of  100  words  they  should  be  selected  from  the 
standpoint  of  difficulty  and  frequency  of  use.  As  a concrete  illustration  of  a 
possible  method  of  selecting  and  arranging  such  a series  of  two  dimensional  check 
lists,  we  wish  to  call  the  reader’s  attention  to  Chapter  VIII  in  which  is  de- 
scribed the  methods  of  procedure,  materials  used,  and  the  data  obtained  by  us 
when  w©  developed  a series  of  two  dimensional  check  lists  for  comparing  the  word 
offerings  in  Grades  2 to  8 inclusive  in  these  ten  spellers.  Further,  to  assist 
tho  superintendent  in  his  study  of  spellers  we  have  assembled  in  the  beforw  men- 
tioned chapter  a series  of  grade  norms  for  spellers  derived  in  the  progress  of 
our  project. 

The  superintendent  should  give  one  ©r  more  standard  spelling  tests 
(Ayres,  Buckingham,  or  the  Teachers  College)  and  determine  the  spelling  ability 
of  the  pupils  in  the  different  grades.  These  data  may  then  be  used  to  assist 
him  in  deciding  which  speller  on  the  basis  of  the  difficulty  of  the  word  offer- 
ings in  the  grades  is  best  suited  to  the  ability  of  the  pupils  in  each  grade.  He 
may  also  determine  the  proportion  of  each  speller  devoted  to  the  different  forms 
of  presentation. 

When  the  data  on  the  selection,  gradation,  repetition,  etc.  are  derived 
by  the  superintendent  in  the  foregoing  manner,  he  may  then  compare  them  with  the 
norms  an  similar  phases  of  spellers  derived  by  us  by  much  more  elaborate  and  ex- 
tensive methods  (See  Chapter  VIII).  We  are  not  implying  that  the  foregoing  pha- 
ses oi  spelling  suggested  for  examination  by  the  superintendent  are  the  only  im- 
portant ones.  However, we  submit  that  they  are  among  the  most  important  and 
should  be  given  a relatively  weighty  consideration  in  the  comparison  of  spellers. 

Suggestions  to  Teachers 

feome  suggestions  that  may  be  valuable  for  teachers  have  occurred  to  us 
during  the  development  of  this  project.  The  teacher  should  assist  the  superin- 
tendent in  every  way  possible  in  executing  the  foregoing  comparison  of  spellers. 

He  may  help  in  checking  speller  words  against  selected  comparison  lists,  and  he 

_ j 


- 157  - 

may  assist  by  writing  words  on  cards  and  alphabetizing  them.  It  is  not  altogether 
inconceivable  that  he  may  use  his  classes*  provided  they  are  in  the  middle  and  up- 
per grades*  for  part  of  this  clerical  work. 

One  forcible  suggestion  came  to  us*  namely,  that  the  teacher  must  make  con- 
scious provision  for  relatively  much  more  repetition  of  the  more  difficult  words 
in  the  vocabulary  of  the  speller.  This  perhaps  may  be  attacked  best  by  first 
giving  preliminary  tests  over  the  word  lists  for  several  lessons  ahead  and  then 
apportioning  the  relative  amount  of  repetition  on  the  basis  of  the  spelling  per- 
formance of  the  pupils  on  these  words.  Owing  to  the  present  lack  of  data  on 
the  learning  difficulty,  the  teacher  will  have  to  continue  repetition  and  testing 
until  the  words  have  been  learned  so  that  the  recall  of  the  correct  spelling  i8 
efficient. 

The  limitations  in  the  variety  of  forms  of  presentation,  also,  require 
that  the  teacher  use  many  more  devices  for  presentation  than  are  suggested  by 
the  spellers.  Only  in  this  way  can  he  lend  the  spice  of  variety  to  the  learning 
of  the  spelling  of  the  words. 

Suggestions  to_ Superintendents  and  Teachers  on  SP el ling 
££«  only  Typical  of  what  may  be  done  in  other  subjects. 

The  specific  recommendations  for  spellers  that  we  have  made  in  the  pre- 
ceding sections  are  only  typical  of  the  recommendations  that  should  be  applied 
tc  other  subjects  such  as  arithmetic,  histories,  and  geographies,  if  we  but  pos- 
sessed the  requisite  concrete  data  by  means  of  which  we  might  carry  them  out. 

For  these  latter  subjects  the  superintendent  and  his  teachers  should  set  up  con- 
crete data  of  their  own  pending  the  activities  of  research  workers. 

In  history,  for  example,  they  can  decide  what  items  ought  to  be  found 
in  history  texts, and  go  through  the  texts  to  see  if  they  are  presented.  In  the 
comparison  of  history  texts,  therefore,  they  should  look  for  facts,  for  example, 
"the  three  most  important  causes  of  the  Civil  WarM , (These  should  be  determined 
upon  and  written  out  beforehand),  "the  suppression  of  the  limited  states  Bank 


- 


. 


, 


. 


, 

. 

... 

. 

. . • . . . . 'll. 

...  J . 

• . ' . . - ' ; . c ■ 


^ -I.  v.  • , r.  • , . 


< < 


- . 


. 


......  . . / . . . . a.  r-  . ... 


;n , . j 


' - , ...  , . . c , . 


' ■ . V , t 

C 


- ■ 


o - - -i ' v . ; - : " C 


...  i 


. . J 


, • • . , , • ' ..  < Q 


, ' 

- ‘ ' • • • , 


- 158  - 


by  Jackson,"  and  "the  Missouri  Compromise."  Such  a procedure  would  give  much 
more  tangible  data  for  purposes  of  comparison  than  would  consideration  of  the 
texts  under  such  captions  as  "Organization  of  subject  matter",  or  "Meet  the  needs 
of  children." 

Suggestions  to.  Publishers  and  Authors  Spellers 

Many  suggestions  that  may  be  valuable  to  publishers  and  authors  of  spel- 
lers came  to  us  during  the  progress  of  our  project.  We  shall  take  the  liberty  of 
giving  some  of  the  more  important  ones  that  have  not  escaped  us. 

One  of  the  serious  difficulties  that  confronted  us  in  our  examination 
of  the  forms  of  presentation  was  that  the  authors  did  not  use  a common  terminology 
in  their  headings  and  contexts. 

Each  speller,  as  suggested  many  times  before,  should  contain  an  alpha- 
betical finding  vocabulary  for  each  grade.  With  each  word  might  well  be  shown 
the  number  of  times  it  is  repeated,  its  spelling  difficulty,  and  whether  new  to 
the  grade  or  not.  Such  data  would  aid  in  comparison  of  texts  and  be  of  inestim- 
able value  to  the  teacher. 

More  of  the  "second  and  third  thousand  most  frequently  used  words" 
should  be  included  in  the  spellers  since  we  have  fairly  reliable  data  on  these. 

The  words  selected  for  a given  grade  should  be  better  suited  to  the 
known  spelling  ability  of  children  of  that  grade. 

The  repetition  of  the  words  in  the  spellers  should  have  a positive 
relation  to  the  difficulty  of  the  words.  In  general  the  more  difficult  a word 
the  more  frequently  it  should  occur. 

I 

Textbook  publishers  should  employ  an  expert  in  analysis  of  texts  and 
give  him  ample  assistance  in  order  that  the  contents  and  forms  of  presentation 
may  be  accurately  and  extensively  determined.  This  would  relieve  the  field 
agents  of  the  task  of  making  superficial  analyses  of  the  texts  they  are  presenting 
to  the  school  authorities  for  purposes  of  adoption. 


■ 

. , 

■ 

t t 

> . . . •.  . 


' . l^j) 

. 

■ 

. 


- 


. 


I 


. 


. 


- . . ...  $:?:  i v c fl 


. 


- 


• 

[) 


- 159  - 

Suggestions  to  Research  Workers  in  Spelling 

A few  suggestions  to  research  workers  in  spelling  concerning  some  of 
the  problems  that  arose  in  the  course  of  the  development  of  our  project  may  not 
be  too  presumptuous* 

A comparison  of  the  Ayree-Teacher s College  list  of  three  thousand  with 
the  Anderson-Ashbaugh  three  thousand  words  would  doubtless  yield  many  words  not 
common  to  the  two.  Consequently  a composite  of  the  two  would  give  an  appreciably 
larger  number  of  words  whose  spelling  difficulty  and  frequency  of  occurrence  in 
life  have  been  derived.  Therefore,  many  more  of  the  words  in  the  vocabularies 
of  spellers  could  be  studied  than  is  possible  at  present. 

A study  of  the  frequencies  of  the  words  common  to  the  foregoing  lists 
might  raise  the  question  as  to  the  reliability  of  the  data  on  this  phase  of  the 
two  vocabularies  independently  derived  and  occasion  further  investigation  in 
this  field* 

The  difficulty  and  frequency  of  the  Anderson-Ashbaugh  three  thousand 
words  should  be  placed  on  the  same  basis  as  the  corresponding  items  for  Ayres- 
Teachera  College  list*  This  would  expedite  further  research  work  with  these 
two  lists. 

Regardless  of  the  monumental  work  of  Jones,  the  question  of  the  words 
used  by  children  should  be  reopened*  We  need  to  know  these  words  with  their 
frequencies  and  their  difficulties.  Then  these  may  be  used  conjointly  with 
words  derived  from  adult  usage  to  construct  the  proper  vocabulary  to  be  taught 
to  children. 

It  was  sharply  forced  upon  us  that  we  need  to  have  a much  more  exten- 
sive list  of  words  whose  difficulty  and  frequency  have  been  derived.  This  would 
have  aided  us  immeasureably  in  our  examination  of  the  word  offerings  in  the  spel- 
lers. It  would  also  aid  the  teachers  and  the  makers  of  spellers* 

Careful  and  extended  experiments  should  be  carried  out  under  school- 
room  conditions  to  determine:  (a)  the  number  of  new  words  and  review  words  that 


. 


* 


■ 


. 


'■  ■ 


. 


. 


* 


‘ 

. 


- 16©  - 


I 

pupils  of  a given  grade  can  master  efficiently;  (b)  the  optimum  median  difficulty 
of  words  that  children  of  a given  grade  should  have  presented  to  them;  (c)  the 
number  of  repetitions,  other  things  being  equal,  that  are  required  in  a given 
grade  in  order  that  the  children  may  learn  efficiently  a given  word  (This  should 
be  extended  to  many  words  as  rapidly  as  possible);  and  (d)  the  relative  worth  of 
different  forms  of  presentation  in  order  that  we  may  pass  better  judgment  on  this 
phase  of  spellers. 

We  need  to  obtain  reliable  data  on  the  frequency  of  occurrence  in  life 
and  the  difficulty  of  abbreviations  and  proper  names. 

Another  valuable  and  interesting  investigation  would  be  to  determine 
the  effect  of  the  recent  scientific  vocabulary  studies  on  the  selection  and  gra- 
dation of  words  in  spellers.  Our  findings  might  be  compared  with  the  findings 
in  similar  analyses  of  spellers  that  have  been  published  in  certain  decades  prior 
to  the  beginning  of  these  vocabulary  studies.  An  interesting  historical  develop- 
ment in  the  selection  and  gradation  of  words  might  thus  be  worked  out. 

In  Conclusion 

In  concluding  the  description  of  our  project  and  the  discussion  of  its 
findings  we  feel  that  many  of  our  assumptions  have  defects  which  are  obvious  to 
the  reader  and  that  our  technic  of  analysis  and  our  modes  of  comparisons  are 
crude.  However,  if  we  have  contributed  a modicum  of  data,  suggested  possible 
types  of  further  analysis,  developed  slightly  certain  tools  for  research,  given 
some  impetus  to  the  sorely  needed  analysis  and  measurement  of  the  instruments 
of  instruction,  and  reached  reasonably  rigorous  conclusions  concerning  the  phases 
of  spellers  examined,  we  shall  not  feel  that  our  protracted  labors  have  been 
wholly  in  vain. 


e|  -rov 


, 

" 


■ 


■ 


. 


. 


♦ 


* 


. 


161 


SELECTED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Anderson,  W.  N.  The  determination  of  a spelling  vocabulary  based  upon  written 
correspondence.  (Unpublished  doctors'  dissertation.)  University  of  Iowa. 
1917. 

Ashbaugh,  E.  J.  "Iowa  Spelling  Scales,"  University  of  Iowa  Extension  Bulletin, 
University  of  Iowa,  1919. 


Ayres,  L.  P.  Measuring  scale  for  ability  in  spelling.  New  York:  Russell  Sage 
Foundation,  1915* 

Ayres,  L.  P.  "The  application  to  tables  of  distribution  of  a shorter  method 
for  computing  coefficients  of  correlation,"  Journal  of  Educational  Research, 
April,  1920.  — — ™ ~ " ‘ 

Ayres,  L.  P.  "A  shorter  method  for  computing  the  coefficient  of  correlation," 
Journal  of  Educational  Research,  March,  1920. 

Buckingham,  B.  R.  Spelling  ability:  its  measurement  and  distribution. 

Teachers  College,  Columbia  University,  1913". 

Buckingham,  B.  R.  "Textbooks:  their  cost  and  improvement"  (Editorial).  Journal 
o f Edu cat io nal_  Re search,  March,  1920. 

Buckingham,  B.  R.  "Research  in  textbook  publishing,"  (Editorial).  Journal  of 
Educational  Research,  October,  1920. 

Cook,  W.  A*  end  O'Shea,  M.  V.  The  child  and  his  spelling.  Indianapolis:  Bobbs- 
Merrill  Company,  1914. 

Eldridge,  R.  C.  Six  thousand  common  English  words.  (Published  privately.) 
Rochester,  N.  Y.,  1911. 

Horn,  Ernest.  "Principles  of  method  in  teaching  as  derived  from  scientific 
investigation,"  Eighteenth  Yearbook  of  the  National  Society  for  the  Study 
of  Education,  Part  II.  Bloomington,  Illinois:  Public  School  Publishing 
Company. 

Judd,  C.  H.  "Analyzing  textbooks,"  Elementary  School  Journal,  October,  1918. 

Jones,  W.  Franklin.  Concrete  investigation  of  the  material  of  English  spelling. 
University  of  South  Dakota,  Vermillion,  South  DakotaT  1915. ~ 

Knowles,  Rev.  J.  The  London  point  system  of  reading  for  the  blind.  1904. 

Mead,  C.  D.  "The  best  method  of  selection  textbooks,"  Educational  Administration 
and  Supervision,  February,  1918.  ~ - 

(Briggs  and  Kelley).  "Sixteen  spelling  scales,"  Teachers  College  Record, 
September,  1920. 


Si  ' " 


162  - 


Starch,  Daniel.  Educational  psychology.  Now  York:  The  Macmillan  Company,  1919. 

Stoops,  R.  0.  "The  use  of  score  cards  for  judging  textbooks,"  American  School 
Board  Journal,  March,  1918.  — 1 — — ■ 

Thorndike,  E.  L.  Mental  and  social  measurement,  second  edition.  Teachers  Col- 
lege, Columbia  University,  1913. 

Thorndike,  E.  L.  "Recent  developments  in  educational  measurements, M Fifth  Con- 
ference on  Educational  Measurements.  (Bulletin  of  the  Extension  Division, 
Indiana  University,  1918.) 

Tidyman,  W.  F.  The  teaching  of  spelling.  Yonkers-on-Hudson:  World  Book  Company, 


Woolfolk,  Algar.  The  need  of  intensive  work  in  spelling.  (Unpublished). 

Woody,  C.  "Application  of  scientific  method  in  evaluating  subject  matter  of 
spellers,"  Journal  of  Educational  Research.  February,  1920. 


. 


, 

- 

• 

. 

. 

• 

. 

. 

. 

. 

- 

• 

• 

- 163  - 


VITA 

Arlie  Glenn  Capps,  son  of  George  A*  and  Ellen  Capps,  was  born  near 
Stahl,  Missouri,  March  2,  1 887 • His  elementary  education  was  received  in  the 
rural  schools,  and  his  high  school  and  part  of  his  undergraduate  collegiate  edu- 
cation was  received  in  the  State  Teachers  College,  Kirksville,  Missouri. 

After  teaching  in  rural  schools,  he  became  in  various  places  principal 
of  elementary  and  secondary  schools  and  city  superintendent.  In  1915  he  entered 
the  University  of  Missouri  from  which  he  received  the  B.  S.  degree  in  1916  and 
the  A.  M.  degree  in  1917*  The  last  two  years  that  he  attended  the  University  of 
Missouri  he  held  the  Peabody  Fellowship  in  Education,  in  1917-18  he  was  director 
of  the  cooperative  study  of  the  rural  schools  of  Missouri  and  statistician  to  the 
state  department  of  education.  Since  1918  he  has  been  lecturer  and  graduate  stu- 
dent in  the  College  of  Education  of  the  University  of  Illinois.  He  taught  at 
the  University  of  Illinois  during  the  summer  session  of  1919  and  at  the  University 
of  Missouri  during  the  summer  session  of  1920. 

He  has  published  ten  articles  among  them  being: 

"Cooperative  study  of  the  rural  schools  of  Missouri,” 

69th  Report  of  the  Public  Schools  of  the  State 
of  Missouri,  pp.  36-95. 

"Curriculum  content  of  a high  school  spelling  course," 

Journal  of  Educational  Research,  Vol.  2,  No.  3, 
pp.  626-35* 


